At the age of 50, Radha Vembu has emerged as a notable figure in the Indian business arena, recognized as the wealthiest self-made woman in India as per the 360 ONE Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2023.
Renowned in the technology industry, Radha is highly regarded for her significant contributions to software development and business leadership. She is the sister of Sridhar Vembu, co-founder of Zoho Corporation, where she has played a crucial role in the company’s success and growth. With sharp intelligence and a passion for innovation, she has led various initiatives within Zoho, contributing to the company’s rise as a global leader in cloud-based software solutions. Radha’s leadership style combines technical expertise with a commitment to creating a collaborative and empowering work environment. Her dedication to advancing technology and achieving business excellence makes her a noteworthy and influential figure in the dynamic tech industry. Best known for the online office suite offering Zoho Office Suite, the firm competes with the likes of Microsoft and Salesforce.
Born on December 24, 1972, in Chennai, Radha completed her early education at the National Higher Secondary School in Chennai. She holds a degree in industrial management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
Her father, Sambamurthy Vembu, worked as a stenographer in the Madras High Court.
Radha’s husband, Rajendran Dandapani, serves on the Zoho board and holds positions as Business Solutions Evangelist at Zoho Corporation and President at Zoho Schools of Learning. On rare occasions, Dandapani has shared on social media that Radha gifts him books and cooks for him.
The couple is blessed with a son.
During her leisure time, Radha enjoys gardening, which is her favorite activity outside of her professional commitments.
Radha Vembu – Career
Radha Vembu, one of the founders of Zoho Corporation, has achieved the status of the wealthiest self-made Indian woman, surpassing Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, as per the Hurun India Rich List 2023. The report values Radha’s net worth at ₹34,900 crore, ranking her 40th among the top 100 richest Indians. In the list of India’s top five software entrepreneurs, she holds the third position, with Shiv Nadar and the family of HCL leading.
Over the past year, Radha has made a remarkable climb of 103 ranks, as reported in the 2023 M3M Hurun Global Rich List released on March 22. Globally, she stands as the second richest self-made woman in software and services. The 2023 Hurun list features 247 self-made women, a decrease of 22 from the previous year, with 102 women billionaires.
Radha possesses a 47.8 percent stake in Zoho, while her brother Sridhar Vembu owns 5 percent of the company. Another brother, Sekar, is also a stakeholder in Zoho but prefers to stay out of the public eye.
In addition to co-founding Zoho Corporation, Radha serves as a director for an agricultural NGO called Janaki Hi-Tech Agro Pvt. Ltd. and a real estate company named Highland Valley Corporation Pvt. Ltd.
Radha Vembu – Zoho
Zoho, with its headquarters in Austin, Texas, operates from a large 375-acre campus.
Founded by Radha’s older brother, Sridhar Vembu, the company originally started as AdventNet in 1996. Radha’s wealth comes from her ownership in the private Zoho Corp, known for providing cloud-based business software. After graduating with a degree in industrial management from IIT Madras, Radha serves as the product manager for Zoho Mail and is the director of the Corpus Foundation.
Radha also oversees Zoho Workplace, manages a team of 250, and actively contributes to the development of more than 45 products at Zoho Corporation. She emphasizes her involvement in creating a fair workplace and personally addressing internal issues.
Competing with major companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce, Zoho Corp provides a suite of business, collaboration, and productivity applications. With over 30 online applications ranging from CRM to mail, office suite, project management, invoicing, email marketing, social media management, and more, the suite includes Zoho Writer, Zoho CRM, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Projects, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Creator, Zoho Docs, Zoho Invoice, Zoho People, Zoho Mail, Zoho Assist, Zoho Reports, Zoho Recruit, Zoho Support, Zoho Books, Zoho Bug Tracker, Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Sites, Zoho Connect, and more.
In 2020, Zoho introduced a toolkit named Zoho Remotely to assist businesses in transitioning to a work-from-home setup.
Zoho has obtained 25 patents in the last three years.
Zoho Mail, initiated in 2008, boasts a user base of over 15 million.
Additionally, Zoho is currently testing ‘arattai,’ a WhatsApp alternative, with the term meaning “chat” in the Tamil language.
Apart from her business accomplishments, Radha is acknowledged for promoting gender equality and empowering women in the technology industry. Her journey aligns with the global push for fairness and representation in business, making her success a shared triumph for women aiming to overcome stereotypes and create a more inclusive future.
Additionally, Radha’s philanthropy work, especially in education, underscores her dedication to improving society. Through support for educational programs, scholarships, and initiatives, she significantly contributes to empowering young minds and nurturing the development of future leaders, extending her positive influence beyond the business sector.
Radha Vembu – Controversy
Pramila Srinivasan, the wife of Zoho’s CEO Sridhar Vembu, has claimed that Sridhar provided Zoho shares to his siblings for minimal amounts. One of these siblings is Radha, who holds an almost 48% stake in Zoho.
Radha Vembu – Awards and Recognitions
Radha’s name appeared on the Hurun Global Rich List 2023, showcasing a substantial increase in her wealth over the past year. She climbed an impressive 103 ranks during this period, securing the position of the second wealthiest self-made woman globally in the software and services industry.
IOTY 2022 | Zoho Corporation Wins Indian Of The Year: Start-Up Category
FAQs
Who is Radha Vembu?
Radha Vembu, one of the founders of Zoho Corporation, has achieved the status of the wealthiest self-made Indian woman, as per the Hurun India Rich List 2023. She currently works as a product manager at Zoho Mail.
What is the net worth of Radha Vembu?
The real-time net worth of Radha Vembu is $2.1 billion.
How much stake does Radha Vembu hold in Zoho Corporation?
Radha Vembu holds almost a 48% stake in Zoho Corporation.
Zoho mafia refers to the group of companies that were founded by former Zoho employees. Zoho was founded in the year 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in Pleasanton, California; it was initially known as Advent Inc. and later renamed Zoho Corporation in the year 2009.
Vembu began his entrepreneurial venture from a small apartment room in Chennai, partnering with Tony Thomas, who specialized in Network Management. Zoho’s headquarters in Perungudi, Chennai, began its journey by building software products in the 1990s. The company focuses on building web-based applications and software products.
Here are some of the companies founded by Ex-Zoho employees or Zoho Mafia:
Company Name
Founder
Freshworks
Girish Mathrubootham
Chargebee
Krish Subramanian
Hippo Video
Karthi Mariappan S
Facilio
Prabhu Ramachandran, Rajavel Subramanian, Krishnamoorthi Rangasamy, and Yogendra Babu
Zoho is an Indian multinational company that specializes in software development, cloud computing, and web-based business tools. Their first and most successful product is Zoho CRM, launched in 2005. Since then, Zoho CRM has reached its 1 million user milestone in the year 2008. The company has grown to become a leader in the SaaS industry and has over 100 million users globally. On Republic Day, celebrated on January 26th,2021, Sridhar Venmbhu was granted the Padma Shri Award for his contributions to Zoho and Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign. According to Forbes, Sridhar Vembu’s net worth of $3.75 billion makes him the 55th richest person in India.
The term ‘Zoho mafia’ has to do with the former employees of Zoho who began their entrepreneurial journey after working at Zoho. Zoho mafia is an outfit that creates jobs directly and indirectly in Chennai. It is a vital part of the Indian software industry as it not only creates jobs but also inspires future entrepreneurs.
With revenue of more than $153.55 Mn in Q3-2023, this outfit is quickly turning Chennai into a breeding ground for deep-tech startups, said Girish Mathrubootham, a former Zoho employee who quit Zoho to start his venture called Freshworksin 2010. Since its inception, Freshworks has grown to become a global leader in software products built for small and medium-scale businesses for cloud-based business software, earning a majority of the revenue in North American and European markets. It generated $545 million in revenue in 2023.
Freshworks Annual Revenue
Freshworks is the first Indian SaaS company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. The growth of Freshworks has been exponential. The market capitalization of the company in 2023 is $5.38 Billion. The company launched Freshdesk in 2010 to engage customers with customer support and sales. It then rebranded to Freshdesk to launch other SaaS tools like Freshmarketer, Freshsales, etc., which help entrepreneurs in Customer Relationship Management.
Chargebee is a SaaS subscription billing and revenue management software that powers end-to-end recurring billing services for subscription businesses. It helps in automating subscriptions, billing, invoicing, and payments, as well as provides other key metrics and insights into the subscription business.
Hippo Video – Easy-To-Use Video Solution for All Your Business Needs
Co-Founder & CEO
Karthi Mariappan S, Nilamchand Jain
Founded in
2017
Headquarters
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Karthi Mariappan S | Hippo Video Co-Founder & CEO
Hippo Video is an online video recording tool that provides an easy-to-use video solution for all your business needs. With Hippo Video, you can capture, record, edit, share, and store screen captures. It lets us record video from the desktop screen or the webcam with a click of a button.
Hippo Video lets you automate your entire sales process to send personalized videos at scale. It delivers customized email campaigns to help you get more leads, drive sales, improve customer retention, and expand your brand reach.
Facilio – Changing the Way Buildings Are Managed
Founders
Prabhu Ramachandran, Rajavel Subramanian, Krishnamoorthi Rangasamy, and Yogendra Babu
Founded in
2017
Headquarters
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Facilio Founders
Facilio is an AI and ML-powered data-driven property operations software that helps real estate owners and operators get hard-to-access building data, optimize building performance, and build operations across real estate portfolios towards a data-centric and driven model of operation.
Survey Sparrow – Turn Surveys Into Conversations
Founder & CEO
Shihab Muhammed
Founded in
2017
Headquarters
Palo Alto, CA 94306, United States
Shihab Muhammed | Survey Sparrow Founder & CEO
Survey Sparrow is an omnichannel experience management platform that helps drive employee engagement and customer experience through the use of surveys. A conversational interface helps you deliver surveys in a chat-like experience and increase completion rates by up to 40% with the use of a mobile-friendly and highly engaging experience.
This omnidirectional approach helps you reach your audience faster. This platform delivers many solutions to measure the loyalty of your customers and employees alike through NPS surveys, 360 surveys, chat-like surveys, and classic surveys.
Ulektz – Delivering a Digital Learning Experience
Founder & CEO
Dr. Sadiq Sait M.S
Founded in
2016
Headquarters
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Dr. Sadiq Sait M.S | ULektz Founder & CEO
ULektz is an EdTech SaaS Startup founded in the year 2016; it provides a wide range of resources for education, employability, and employment opportunities to higher education students. ULektz offers an ecosystem to connect students, educators, and all other stakeholders of higher education and provide them with curated quality resources and services for enhancing education, skills, and careers.
They also help drive a digital learning experience by providing mobile apps (Cloud-based educational ERP software) to help colleges and universities leverage innovative technologies.
B2Brain – Offers Lead Intelligence Software
Co-founders
Sridhar Ranganathan and Karthik Mahadevan
Founded in
2020
Headquarters
Wilmington, United States
B2Brain Co-founder and CEO | Sridhar Ranganathan
Founded in 2020, B2Brain is the sales team’s companion for automated account intelligence. You can automate account research to focus on opening accounts, building pipelines, and creating opportunities. You can get Intel, Talking Points, and Leads directly in your CRM/SEP. Using B2Brain, you can accelerate outbound sales with contextual information on your leads and accounts.
It is trusted by enterprises such as Auditoria, Capillary, Evolv, Salesloft, Flutura, and others globally. It integrates with leading CRMs, SEPs, and Collaboration tools such as Salesforce, Salesloft, Slack, MS Teams, Freshworks, Zoho, and more.
Edmingle – Build Your Online Teaching Empire
Founders
Gaurav Doshi, Harshit Sharaff
Founded in
2016
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka
Gaurav Doshi | Edmingle Founder & CEO
Edmingle is a SaaS-based LMS platform for educators, colleges, and coaching institutes. It allows educators to design personalized courses, create exams, quizzes, exercises, and assignments, have conversations, and track student performance across subjects and courses. Teachers and administrators can send real-time notifications to students and parents for real-time monitoring and feedback. It also has marketing capabilities built in to boost student registrations and marketing for coaching institutes. It has an app for both Android and iOS devices.
Tart Labs – Crafting Innovative Software Solutions
Founder
Gowtham Raj
Founded in
2014
Headquarters
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Gowtham Raj | Tart Labs Founder
Tart Labs is a leading software development company headquartered in Coimbatore, India. The company was founded in 2014 with a vision to revolutionize the software industry. Since then, Tart Labs has grown exponentially and has become a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes across the globe.
Tart Labs offers various services, including mobile and web application design and development, enterprise applications, cloud consulting, and cybersecurity solutions. The company’s team of experienced and skilled professionals is passionate about creating innovative and user-friendly software solutions that meet the specific needs of their clients.
Voonik – Fashion for Every Woman
Founder
Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan
Founded in
2013
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka
Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan | Voonik Founders
Voonik is an online marketplace for women’s fashion. It offers a wide range of products from over 10,000 brands, including apparel, footwear, accessories, and beauty products.
Voonik’s mission is to make fashion accessible and affordable for every woman. The company uses technology to provide its customers with a personalized shopping experience. Customers can create profiles and specify their style, size, budget, and preferences. Voonik then uses this information to recommend products that are likely to interest the customer. The company has been growing rapidly in recent years. 2017, the company raised $20 million in funding from RB Investments. Voonik is now one of India’s leading online marketplaces for women’s fashion.
Securden – Secure Your Privileged Access, Protect Your Most Critical Assets
Securden is a leading provider of privileged access management (PAM) solutions. PAM is a critical security discipline that helps organizations protect their most sensitive data and systems from unauthorized access. Securden’s solutions provide comprehensive features to help organizations manage and control their privileged accounts and passwords, monitor and control privileged access to systems and applications, and assess and mitigate the risks associated with privileged accounts.
Startpix – Fueling Digital Transformation With Content and Personalized Commerce
Founders
Mohammed Yasar Ibrahim
Founded in
2018
Headquarters
Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Mohammed Yasar Ibrahim | StartPix Technologies Founder
StartPix Technologies is a Chennai-based digital transformation company that delivers content and personalized commerce solutions, fueling the transformation in digital experiences.
StartPix Technologies offers a wide range of services, including digital commerce, content management, customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP). The company helps businesses to build and manage their online stores, create and manage their content across all digital channels, implement and manage CRM systems to improve customer engagement and loyalty and implement and manage ERP systems to streamline their operations and improve efficiency.
Docupilot – Automate Your Documents to Grow Your Business
DocuPilot is a document automation and generation software that helps businesses create and manage documents more efficiently. It allows users to create dynamic documents from intelligent templates and data and send the created documents as email or to their favorite apps like DocuSign, Dropbox, Zapier, etc. DocuPilot can generate PDF or Word documents from Google Forms response, Google Sheets, Jotform, NinjaForms, Salesforce Leads, and other sources.
DocuPilot is a cloud-based solution, so it is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. It is also easy to use, with a drag-and-drop interface and pre-built templates for common documents. DocuPilot is affordable and offers a free trial, so businesses of all sizes can try it before they buy it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are various companies founded by former Zoho employees. With experience working in Zoho combined with their engineering knowledge, they have developed many successful products hailing both Indian and Overseas markets in the niche technology segment of cloud-based applications across various industry verticals. They also help each other to thrive in the SaaS marketplace by providing their services to one another.
FAQs
What does Zoho do?
Zoho is a web-based online office suite containing word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, web conferencing, customer relationship management (CRM), project management, invoicing, and other applications. Specific needs of the businesses can be met through Zoho.
Who is the founder of Zoho?
Sridhar Vembu is the founder and CEO of Zoho.
When was Zoho founded?
Zoho was founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas.
In an increasingly interconnected world, where online tools and services play an integral role in both our personal and professional lives, password security has become a critical concern. From social media accounts to financial platforms and email services, passwords serve as the first line of defense for protecting our sensitive information.
However, with the growing number of online accounts and services, the task of managing passwords has become a daunting challenge for many. In response to this dilemma, password managers have emerged as indispensable tools that simplify and fortify our digital security. A password manager streamline the process by storing all passwords in one secure account. Notable features include generating random passwords, easy access to multiple accounts, convenient autofill, and secure password sharing.
Studies have shown that the majority of people use very weak passwords and reuse them on different websites. In fact, nearly 35% are using the same password for most of their online logins. The best password managers are the ones which are easy to use and let you manage all your online passwords in a protected and easier way.
In this blog, we delve into the world of password managers to explore the top solutions available today. Discover how these innovative tools not only generate robust and unique passwords but also streamline access to multiple accounts, offer autofill convenience, and ensure secure password sharing. Our curated list of the best password managers will empower you to take control of your online presence and protect your valuable data with ease.
Top 10 Reliable Password Managers
Password Managers are very useful for protecting and managing multiple passwords for different platforms in a unified and centralized place.
Let’s look at some of the Top password Managers of 2023.
RoboForm is the password safety solution. Its powerful admin panel centralizes the password of employees. Enjoy the benefits of automated password management and secure your system from external and internal threats.
It not only securely stores your passwords from different sites but also keeps them up-to-date and organized. You only need to create a master password for Roboform to access and manage all the passwords.
The master password is not stored on the server to ensure security. You can easily create your account within 2 minutes and onboard your employees, assign the desired roles and permission.
Pros:
More than 6 million users and 10 thousand companies are using it
Secure, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface
AES-256-bit encryption for password creation, storing and sharing
Cons:
The pricing structure for the business plan is messed up
Dashlane is a robust and powerful password manager that helps to store, share, and use your passwords with full security. An automatic password manager is vital for the security, productivity, and profitability of the business. It eliminates weak, reused, and vulnerable passwords. It auto-fills the password whenever you or your employee needs it.
Security is the most promising feature of this software, it even removes all your databases from their side when you leave Dashlane.
Its password generator tool generates very strong passwords for you and reminds you to update the vulnerable password for better security.
NordPass is a password manager that stores all your sensitive information like passwords, credit card credentials, and other information on its secured server. It uses a zero-knowledge architecture to ensure all the data is stored in an encrypted form in the Nordpass vault.
To ensure an additional layer of security, it uses multi-factor authentication. So, to login into your account, you also need to prove your identity after entering the master password.
Easily add members to your account and allow them to use the passwords based on the roles you’ve assigned. You have the power to remove any user from the list at any time. To auto-generate strong passwords, you can play with settings, like you can set the number of characters, digits, special characters, and capital letters. A combination of all these characters will create a much stronger password for you.
Pros:
More than 2.5 million users and 1500 companies worldwide are using it
XChaCha20 encryption
Monitor your account in real-time to prevent data breaches
The auto lock system automatically locks the password manager after a set amount of time
A password manager is a need for any business to securely save and use its sensitive information, and LastPass helps in this regard. Now you do not need to remember all the passwords, you only need to remember one password, which is the password for LastPass. Generate as much stronger passwords as you can and access them in a single click.
It significantly removes the burden of remembering complicated passwords for hundreds or thousands of sites. Auto-fill your form and password in a single click with full security.
Add all other notes securely into your LastPass vault and get access to it anytime, anywhere. Easy accessibility on all major web browsers and mobile devices.
Pros:
Access your Lastpass vault using Lastpass authentication without entering the master password
Dark web monitoring
Get alerts when there is any risk of a data breach
Multi-factor authentication and AES-256-bit encryption
Cons:
For some websites, auto-fill doesn’t work properly
1Password, As the name suggests, you only need to remember one password and you become eligible to login into different sites. It makes it easy to organize your secure information and autofill the password on the websites.
Extension for all the major web browsers and mobile apps for iOS and Android makes it easier to use it on any device. Whenever you sign up for a new account, you can generate a strong password using a password generator of 1Password. After the sign-up process, it will automatically save this password in a vault for future login.
Apart from saving and using the password, you can also save your personal information and credit card information for fast filling out the personal information form and payment form.
Pros:
Checks weak and compromised passwords and suggests changes
It regularly removes the password from the clipboard to ensure the safety
AES-256-bit encryption
The secure remote password helps to authenticate your master password without sending it over the Internet
Cons:
The price is comparatively high
Doesn’t allow you to move items from one vault to another directly
Headquartered in Canada, a member of the 5 eye alliance
Bitwarden is an open-source password management tool. It is always a better option to conduct a self-assessment of every product before making the final decision. Bitwarden does provide all the essential features of a password manager but there are some security metrics you need to analyze.
Bitwarden’s AI analyzes the vault and looks for weak, reused, and vulnerable passwords to make them even stronger. Since there are always some ups and downs when we compare different products under the same niche, we need to go through all the features.
It provides its plan for individuals as well as businesses to improve their privacy and security. It conducts an extensive list of audits which puts it slightly on the upper side of the competition.
Pros:
Open source code is available to view the vulnerability at all times
Zero-knowledge architecture
Conduct third-party compliance with privacy shield, GDPR, and CCPA
Cons:
Less appealing user interface
A limited number of bitwarden users share confidential information
Bitwarden’s headquarter is in California, which is a member country of the 5 eyes alliance
Keeper is a fully cloud-based secret manager. It securely stores all your secret information like API keys, database passwords, certificates, SSH keys, or any other confidential data. Each secret in the vault is encrypted with an AES-256-bit key and each key is further encrypted with AES. It empowers the employee to access the credential, anywhere, anytime.
One timeshare feature of the keeper helps to share confidential information without account creation. Information is shared via a secured link which automatically expires after the time you set, one can access the files on only one device.
It is a boon for IT companies to secure their database, programming, and other file passwords and easily use them on the go. Millions of users and thousands of enterprises are already using Keeper to store their passwords and other confidential information.
Pros:
Access Manager to assign role-based access and permission
Zero-knowledge and cloud-based infrastructure
Integration with all IT slack
Dark web monitoring
Separate vault for family members
Dev-ops secret management
Cons:
The free plan is not available
Slow customer support
Pricing Plans
Plan
Price
Business Starter
$2.99/user/month
Business starter
$3.75/user/month
Enterprise
Custom Quote
Zoho Vault
Website
www.zoho.com/vault
Rating
4.6/5
Free Trial
Available
Platform Supported
Web, Android, iPhone/iPad
Best For
Businesses and Enterprises Users
Zoho Vault | Best Password Managers
Zoho Vault is the software provided by the very popular software solution provider, Zoho. It is a password manager that helps to store your passwords, documents, credit card information, SSH keys, and much more.
All the sensitive information is stored in the Zoho data center in encrypted form with AES-256-bit encryption. Because of advanced security features, affordable price, and ease of use, Zoho Vault is a winner of Editor choice password manager.
Whenever the user demands the password, it decrypts the password on the client side. Your master password is only yours, even Zoho doesn’t store it.
Pros:
Host proof hosting security pattern
Free forever plan with a comprehensive list of features
No storage limitations
Availability of innovative browser extensions and app
LogMeOnce is a US-headquartered company that offers password management services. Apart from other software in this industry, it has a patented QR-based login system. While other providers ask for a master password to log into the account, it offers multiple login options like QR, Selfie, Face, fingerprint, Pin, Password, and Azure. Cloud storage encryption is the additional feature provided by this software that encrypts the files and stored content on the cloud storage sites.
mSecure password manager offers flexibility and security at the same time. Equipped with the bank-level security standard your password and sensitive information are fully secured. You get all the required features you expect from any password manager app, plus some additional features like adding tags to your records and intelligent syncing.
It provides flexibility to share the data which you want to share by creating a separate vault. You can permit users to view, edit, share, or download the shared data.
Some sites like Dropbox ask to scan a QR code for verification when 2FA is on. With mSecure, when you scan this code with a one-time password field, then you can use mSecure to authenticate your Dropbox account in the future.
Pros:
Secure cross-account sharing
Biometric unlock for all platforms
Industry-standard AES-256-bit encryption
Intelligent password syncing via mSecure cloud, Dropbox, iCloud, or wifi.
Data merge feature while restoring a backup
Cons:
One can share passwords with only other mSecure users
Update related issues
Pricing Plans
Plan
Price
Essential
$1.99/month
Premium
$2.99/month
Family
$5.99/month
Teams
$23.90/month
Conclusion
Embracing a reliable password manager is no longer an option but a necessity in today’s digital landscape. As we explored the top contenders in the world of password management, it became evident that these tools offer a seamless and secure way to protect your online presence.
With the ability to generate and store strong, unique passwords, effortlessly access multiple accounts, and enhance your overall digital security, password managers empower you to take control of your online life. They serve as an invaluable shield against data breaches, identity theft, and other cyber threats that could have severe consequences on both individuals and organizations.
As you embark on the journey of selecting the best password manager for your needs, consider the unique features, user-friendliness, and compatibility with your devices and platforms. The peace of mind that comes from knowing your digital life is well-guarded is priceless.
FAQs
What is password manager?
Password managers are tools that securely store and manage all your passwords in one place.
Why do I need password manager?
Password manager eliminates the need to remember multiple passwords and enhances your digital security by generating strong and unique passwords for each account.
What are the best password managers?
The best password managers to protect your passwords are as follows
Roboform
Dashlane
NordPass
LastPass
1Password
Bitwarden
Keeper
Zoho Vault
LogMeOnce
mSecure
Is a password manager worth it?
Password managers are the safest way to keep track of your passwords, as they allow you to use stronger passwords without needing to memorize anything.
What is the best free password manager?
Bitwarden is one of the best free password managers. It’s available across iOS and Android. It also has native desktop applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also integrates with every major browser including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.
Are password managers safe to use?
Yes, password managers use advanced encryption and security measures to protect your passwords. Reputable password managers employ industry-standard encryption protocols to safeguard your data from unauthorized access.
How do password managers generate strong passwords?
Password managers utilize complex algorithms to create strong, random passwords that are difficult for hackers to crack.
What should I consider when choosing the right password manager for my needs?
When selecting a password manager, consider factors such as security features, user-friendliness, cross-platform support, compatibility with your devices, and the reputation of the provider.
India is a global leader in the number of startups, with many talented entrepreneurs taking the plunge to bring their ideas to life. Despite the inherent risks, startups in India have a promising future thanks to the creative techniques and unique business models devised by the country’s youth.
Bootstrapping, which involves starting a business with one’s own finances without external funding, is a popular approach among Indian entrepreneurs. This independent method has paved the way for numerous successful bootstrapped startups in India, some of which have been thriving for over 25 years. These startups span various sectors, including food, software, dating, and shopping, and have honed their strategies to cater perfectly to Indian households.
Overall, the future looks bright for bootstrapped startups in India as they continue to innovate and meet the needs of the country’s dynamic market. Join us on this exploration of India’s top bootstrapped startups, where we will showcase their inspiring stories, shed light on their remarkable achievements, and delve into the secrets of their success.
Most successful Indian Bootstrapped Startups
Top Bootstrapped Startups In India
Here are some of the most successful bootstrapped startups in India.
FusionChart – Successful Bootstrapped Startups in India
It is a startup with offices in places such as Bangalore and Kolkata. It is a one hundred percent bootstrapped startup and was started in 2003. It helps to chart several pieces of information together. It uses various software such as Javascript, SVG, and VML and can create compact, interactive, and easily understood charts.
Pallav Nadhani started it. It has spread in over one hundred eighteen countries and is used mainly in the United States, Korea, and Europe. It has over ten million users. It has expanded many times its original size and has been recognized widely. Its staff has also been increased up to two hundred and fifty times and its revenue.
Nadhani worked alone developing the product, its website, sales, marketing, and customer support for the first three years. Also, she independently set up the whole company, and the company used up the money it made in expanding its area of business. These apps are mainly used because of their ease and effectiveness in depicting ideas in charts.
Online productivity tools and business software solutions
Founders
Sridhar Vembu, Tony G. Thomas, Sreenivas Kanumuru
Founded
1996
Zoho – Successful Bootstrapped Startups in India
It is a company that makes business tools based on the web. It offers a range of software that office workers need. It was founded as early as 1996. In its previous stage, it was also known by the name AdventNet. It is privately owned. There are over fifty applications that are a part of the software set provided by it. It helps in conducting office functions with ease.
Sridhar Vembu founded it along with Tony Thomas. Zoho was founded in the year 1996 and has now spread over the globe. Its headquarters is in Chennai, which is in India. Its total assets include five hundred seventy million US dollars. It has many employees, which is more than ten thousand people working under it. It has a total of twelve offices worldwide.
It is a bootstrapped startup as it first started with the two brothers who set up this company with the help of Tony Thomas. Sridhar agreed to do the sales himself and printed cards for business. After getting many contracts, they started focusing their attention on making new products. After the year nineteen ninety-eight, when the sales of this company crossed the one million mark, they started getting paid and hiring people t work for them.
ZOHO the bootstrapped company (Zoho Case study )
42Gears
Company Name
42Gears
Website
www.42gears.com
Headquarters
Banglore
Deals In
Enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions
Founders
Onkar Singh
Founded
2009
42Gears – Bootstrapped Startup in India
42 Gears provide a set of software tools that are a single management system used in mobiles, personal computers, and other devices. It also helps in other functions such as securing the phone, creating content, collaborating, etc. It also has a private mobile testing app that goes by the name Astrofarm. It helps in mobile security, management, EMM, BYOD, MDM, etc.
It was founded in 2009 by Onkar Singh and Prakash Gupta. It has over eighteen thousand customers and has spread across one hundred fifteen different countries across the globe. It has been successfully used in more than five million devices and has one hundred thirty partners worldwide. It is still privately owned and gaining popularity with social media advertising.
It is bootstrapped as Onkar and Prakash set up this company on their own. They decided to risk it, as they were sure that they would be stable once the economy had recovered. His thirteen years of experience in the software field helped them create proper tools that would be helpful to people. Also, the company flourished after they made a profit on their own.
Online retail stockbroking and investment services
Founders
Nithin Kamath, Nikhil Kamath
Founded
2010
Zerodha – bootstrap company in India
It is a platform that deals explicitly with electronic trading and provides financial services. Its products include kites, coins, and consoles, and it offers services for trading with commodities, mutual funds, government funds, bonds, equity, etc. It reached its peak in the year 2020. The name comes from the words Zero and Rodha combined.
Nithin Kamath founded this Zerodha in the year 2010. Its headquarters is in Bangalore. Its income is ₹4,042 crores. And at present, it has over one thousand one hundred people working under it. About five million people are using it now, and it has become the largest retail stockbroker in India, with almost fifteen percent of stocks from the market at its name.
It is a bootstrapped startup as, In June two thousand twenty, Zerodha attained a self-assessed valuation of over one billion USD. The money that was used to set up the company was their own. In the year two thousand fifteen, Zerodha won the Bootstrap Champ trophy. They have to rely totally on their salaries for their company’s growth.
Freshworks is a global software company that provides customer engagement software solutions to businesses. Their suite of products includes helpdesk software, CRM, marketing automation, and more, helping organizations streamline customer support, sales, and marketing processes for improved customer experiences and business growth. Furthermore, Freshworks has expanded its product portfolio to include Freshservice (IT service management software), Freshchat (live chat software), Freshcaller (cloud-based call center software), and more.
It was founded by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy in 2010, with the aim of offering a cloud-based customer support software solution. Freshworks started as a bootstrapped company in India and now has gained recognition and a loyal customer base worldwide.
GrabOn
Company Name
GrabOn
Website
www.grabon.in
Headquarters
Hyderabad
Deals In
Online coupon codes, deals, and discounts for online shopping sites in India
Founders
Ashok Reddy, Bhanu Raj
Founded
2013
GrabOn – Indian bootstrapped startup
GrabOn is probably the first company that comes to our mind when we think about the bootstrapped business of India. Founded by Ashok Reddy in 2013, it is the largest and leading affiliate e-commerce brand in the country. With its wide range of coupons and deals on various renowned brands, it has truly made the shopping experience for online shoppers easy and affordable.
GrabOn ensures that its deals and coupons are regularly updated and verified to maintain their authenticity and usability. Users can explore deals based on specific categories or search for deals from their preferred online stores. The platform also provides a seamless user experience with features like deal alerts, personalized recommendations, and user reviews.
HappyFox, founded in 2011 by Shalin Jain, started as a bootstrap company, relying on its internal resources and self-funding to establish its customer support and helpdesk software solutions. As a bootstrap company, HappyFox demonstrated remarkable determination, resilience, and a commitment to building a successful business without relying on external investments.
It is a help desk and customer support software solution company. Over the years, the company has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming the best ticketing software for modern IT teams. Trusted and used by several fortune 500 brands, the company offers mind-blowing customer support all the time. Moreover, the company has also expanded its business and has its presence in California. So, if you are looking for a smart help desk software, happyFox is all you need!
QuackQuack is an Indian online dating platform founded in 2010 by Ravi Mittal. It is headquartered in Hyderabad, India. It is known to have been a bootstrap company during its early stages. QuackQuack is designed to connect singles and facilitate meaningful relationships, friendships, and matchmaking.
With more than 4 million users, over 800k downloads, the company has seen 2.05 million matches. Going forward, the company is planning to start an in-app video chat feature using which strangers can have a video call if they want to. The company is also planning to launch its app in nearly 10 international languages.
Thinkpot, successful bootstrapped startups in India
Thinkpot is another successful bootstrapped company which is doing just fabulous work in creating and offering inspirational and motivational products. It is a leading merchandise brand in India which has gained huge fame due to its incredible range of products. Established in 2014 by Sumit and Ritesh, the company today deals in more than 1000 exemplary products. From stationary to bags and pouches, from drinkware to palo healthcare, you can find a vast collection of products at an affordable price. All the products of the company and designed to meet the trendy taste and preferences of today’s generation. They are made using unique technology and are sure to be of supreme quality.
Kayako, a customer service software company, initially started as a bootstrap company. Founded in 2001 by Varun Shoor and Vikas Bhagat, Kayako focused on developing innovative solutions to help businesses improve their customer support processes. Kayako’s bootstrapping journey involved careful financial management, strategic planning, and a focus on delivering value to its customers. By staying lean and agile, the company could adapt quickly to market demands, invest in product enhancements, and provide exceptional customer service.
The brand is known to provide customer service and help desk software services to businesses. The company provides a brilliant support to lakhs of firms and is still growing big day by day. Besides this, it also offers some excellent solutions such as e-commerce support, ticketing software, customer support, shared inbox and much more.
Wingify is recognized as one of the successful bootstrapped startups in India. It was founded in 2009 by Paras Chopra with the aim of providing conversion rate optimization (CRO) software solutions to businesses. By relying on its internal resources and revenue generation, Wingify managed to grow and establish itself as a leading player in the CRO software market without external funding or investments.
Currently, thousands of customers use the extra-ordinary services provided by the company. With its par-excellent solutions such as e-commerce, SaaS, e-learning, media/publication and enterprises, Wingify has today become the country’s pioneering tool for optimizing a business’s online presence.
Tagalys is an Indian company that specializes in eCommerce merchandising solutions. Established by Antony Kattukaran and Palaniappan Chellapan, Tagalys has become the go-to option for retailers to optimize their business. Their software platform helps online retailers optimize and personalize their product search, navigation, and recommendations to enhance the shopping experience for customers. This company is on a mission to provide dynamic merchandising to various businesses. So, if someone wants to build and boost the revenue of an online store, Tagalys can be their best companion.
SocialPilot
Company Name
SocialPilot
Website
www.socialpilot.co
Headquarters
Rajkot
Deals In
Social media marketing tools
Founders
Jimit Bagadiya, Tejas Mehta
Founded
2014
Social media has become a powerful tool in today’s world. It can easily make or break any business. Last on our list is one such bootstrapped company ‘SocialPilot’ that helps businesses to scale up their social media channels by offering social media marketing tools. Be it brand collaborations, engaging posts or insightful analysis, the company will take care of all your social media activities and give you the best results at the best price.
Conclusion
As we know, bootstrapping means being independent in every way and keeping everything in our own hands; it reduces the chances of getting into debt. Considering that most startups fail (almost ninety percent), we cannot guarantee that a bootstrapped startup will always be successful. The model of business and the goods that it deals with should be unique. Rest is a matter of luck regarding how the public responds to these products. But as bootstrapping makes the company independent, there are fewer chances of going indebted if it doesn’t succeed. All that is needed to make a company work is innovation.
Bootstrapping is a good idea at present. the Thriving ecosystem of bootstrapped startups in India is a testament to the entrepreneurial talent, innovative ideas, and unwavering determination of Indian entrepreneurs. As they continue to disrupt industries, create value, and make a positive impact, these bootstrapped startups are shaping the future of India’s business landscape.
FAQs
What does it mean for a startup to be bootstrapped?
Bootstrapping refers to starting and growing a business using the founder’s personal funds and resources, without external investment or funding.
Which are the top Indian startups that are bootstrapped?
Top Indian Startups that are bootstrapped are:
FusionCharts
ZOHO
42Gears
Zerodha
Freshworks
Wingify
InMobi
MyOperator
Kayako
Paytm
Which Indian bootstrapped startup became unicorn?
Zerodha is an Indian bootstrapped startup that became unicorn in 2020.
Why do startups need bootstrapping?
Startups may choose bootstrapping to maintain control, avoid debt or equity financing, build resourcefulness, and prove viability before seeking external funding. It fosters independence and allows founders to retain ownership and decision-making power.
What makes a bootstrapped company survive?
If you too want to kick-start a bootstrap business, you must keep the below things in mind.
Come up with an innovative and unique business idea
Hire excellent employees as employees will be your true investment
Control your expenses
Focus on your customers
Keep an eye on your metrics
What are the challenges faced by bootstrapped startups?
Bootstrapped startups often face challenges such as limited resources, slower growth, and increased financial constraints. They need to carefully manage their finances, prioritize investments, and find creative solutions to overcome hurdles.
Promoting brands and products via social media platforms is the trend of town. A new concept known as micro-influencer marketing has gained popularity recently. It’s the same concept as influencer marketing, but on a smaller scale. There are different types of influencers for marketing but micro-influencers are the ones who stand out as a low-cost and high-ROI marketing solution.
In micro-influencer marketing, you need to build a strategy that can help you meet your marketing goals. So, here’s all you need to know about micro-influencermarketing.
You might have come across many people who promote products on their social media. If not, then you must have seen many YouTubers getting free products and promoting them with “Link is in the description box.” Ever thought Why do they do that? They would not gonna promote products for free.
Brands partner with individuals with smaller followings on social media to promote their products with visual posts instead of running sponsored ads. Micro influencer marketingfor startups can help to promote their services & products.
Although you cannot reach those big influencers like Casey Niestate or PewDiePie, etc., you still have a chance with Micro-Influencers. Collaborating with them can benefit startups in many ways. Let’s see who are they and how can they help you to grow the business. Here are some of the best Instagram micro-influencer marketing platforms for startups.
People with more than 1000 but less than 10,000 followers are often known as micro-influencers. However, it all depends on the platform they have followers on. Micro-influencers are on every social media. People who have some influential power and use it to promote other brands to earn some bucks are known as micro-influencers.
When you promote your product through these types of people, you do “Micro-Influencer marketing”. You can choose any platform to promote your product through micro-influencers. YouTube and Instagram platforms are at a peak in this matter, though.
Micro-Influencers Choice of Social Media Platforms for Marketing in 2022
Benefits of Micro-Influencer Marketing
There are many benefits of working with micro-influencers. Some are listed here:
Affordable
As these types of influencers don’t have many followers and much experience, they will ask for a very less paycheck than other influencers. If you are a startup, promoting your product through them is a good option, as it will be dual beneficial for both the startup and the rookie micro-influencer.
High Engagement and Conversion Rate
Some studies say that micro-influencers have much more engagement and conversion rates than big influencers. The micro-influencer conversion rate is inversely proportionate to the number of followers. However, it doesn’t mean that if Kim Kardashian promotes your product, you will get 0 orders.
But it means that the percentage of people who will buy your product through Kim Kardashian will be less than that of micro-influencers. Both are equally important though.
As per the report published on contevo.com, 82% of consumers are very likely to follow the micro-influencer’s recommendation
Appears More Authentic
The product promoted through micro-influencers marketing campaigns appears more authentic to the public. It is because it looks like the influencer is giving his/her honest review. Whereas, a bigger influencer may get into controversy.
As per the report published on contevo.com, 84% of consumers trust peer recommendations rather than going ahead with brand advertisements
Niche Target
You can target the specific type of audience who would be interested in buying your product. All you have to do is to find the perfect influencer.
Backlink
Although it only applies to the blogger influencers, however, most influencers have a blog these days. Your micro-influencer may provide a backlink to you. Even if they don’t, you can ask for one from them.
Brand Awareness
If you promote your product through more than one influencer, it will increase our brand awareness. However, you should always promote your product through multiple influencers at the same time. It will make their mutual followers see your product again and again and they might end up buying your product.
Even though micro-influencers provide a great way to expose the products and brands in the market. There are a few limitations of promoting a business with micro-influencers that one should know before stepping into the action. Some of the major limitations are shared below.
No Security
There is no security that the influencer has genuine followers. There are many illegal options available that allow people to buy followers and even likes. Moreover, most micro-Influencers do not have a verified account. So, you cannot say who exactly is a genuine Influencer.
Not easy to find
It is often not easy to find the perfect Influencer for your product. You have to consider their niche, location, interest, etc. You cannot go to a tech blogger from Delhi and ask him to review your restaurant.
Less Reach
As they don’t have too many followers, they have less reach. It results in less brand recognition of your product unless you ask too many Influencers to promote your product.
More Efforts
As you will hire so many Influencers, you will have to put in more effort. And with more effort comes more time wastage.
7 Tools to Find Right Micro-Influencers
Tools to find micro-influencers
Here is a list of some online tools which can help you find perfect micro Influencers for startups to market your business.
BuzzStream
BuzzStream Website Homepage
BuzzStream is the best micro-influencer platform. It helps identify sites from which to request links and makes this links-building process efficient and human. BussStream is made as a link-building tool which is the base of any work. BuzzStream is one of the easiest-to-use tools for tracking outreach.
NinjaOutreach
NinjaOutreach Website Homepage
NinjaOutreach is an influencer marketing and lead generation software that enables you to find emails and automate their business outreach. NinjaOutreach tools are made up of the best tools to use in marketing outreach to save time. Tools like template builder, search tool, workflow builder, etc. are proving to be an excellent help in the work process.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo Website Homepage
BuzzSumo is a research and monitoring tool. It can help you to keep a tab on trends and market accordingly. BuzzSumo platform also allows the easy monitorisation of the competitor’s activities and working patterns. Using this tool, one can easily learn about the trends in the market and the strategies applied by their competitors.
Brand24
Brand24 Website Homepage
Brand24 is a social CRM and internet monitoring platform. It monitors platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Brand24 is an online reputation management tool that makes social media monitoring much easier with its advanced tool kits. It allows the customers to know the social media hype around them by collecting data from multiple sources.
Influence.co
Influence.co Website Homepage
Influence.co is awebsite that allows Influencers and companies to find each other. It is more like a marketplace for influencers. It allows the influencers to have a professional place to register and the brands to get in touch with the best influencer as per their demand in easy steps.
Zoho
Zoho Website Homepage
Zoho focuses on web-based business tools and information technology. So, you can use their tools to manage social media and marketing campaigns. Zoho is a CRM-based software that manages the task in automation mode and allows the business owners to have more efficiency in their work pattern with less time involved.
Klear
Klear Website Homepage
Klear is a social media analytics and intelligence platform that provides social data services for brands, agencies, and enterprises. It was earlier made as the analytics provider for the Twitter platform. However, now it owns the database of almost 200 social media profiles which is then again categorized into many different categories.
5 Things to Look For While Choosing Micro-Influencers
Although, you must be clear about the advantages and limitations of this, here is a recap. While finding a micro-influencer, you have to remember the following points:
1. Comments on the post (read and observe them carefully).
It is very essential to have a complete idea about their work. But it is also very important to have an idea of how they are judged by the real audiences. The best idea for this can be taken from the comment section, where people share their opinions without much filter.
2. Engagement with their followers.
Micro-influencers are acknowledged because of their followers only. It is very critical to note how a specific influencer manages their relationship with their followers. Maintaining a good relationship and being in constant touch with them through different strategies pave the way to a higher number of followers.
3. The frequency of their posts.
It is not a compulsion to have the highest number of posts in a day to be called a good strategy. Instead, having a constant number of posts daily is a better strategy than having inconsistency in the daily post with no schedule.
4. The relevance of their niche and your product.
Just selecting a micro-influencer by their profile is not an ideal method to go for. Brands should consider the niche of the influencers and the product that needs to be marketed. If both fall in the same direction, then further things can be discussed.
5. The platform they will post on (Preferably, Consider Instagram, or YouTube).
Platform used for marketing also plays a crucial role in the development of the brand. Few platforms are universal, like Instagram, YouTube, etc. They are a universal platform as they have their engagement coming from people of all age groups and people of many languages. Few platforms are limited to the region or age group, which does not prove as a better option to market them.
Although Micro-Influencers do not have much of an audience, they have the potential to give a pump to your new startup. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with giving a chance to some new influencers. However, keep a track of what will they do and how will they promote your product. If they did it wrong, you might have to pay for it. If you are still confused as to where to find them, you can go to Instagram directly and find the relevant hashtags. Or just go to some freelancing website and search for them.
FAQs
Why Micro-influencers are better?
Their audience is more targeted and dedicated to the influencer’s identity, which makes them more attractive to potential sponsors than the big names in the niche. Micro-influencers are more affordable than experts or celebs with millions of followers.
What are micro-influencers in marketing?
A micro-influencer in marketing stands for those people who have selected a niche to promote to their followers. Typically any account having more followers than the normal account but limited to famous personalities marketing about a selected niche are considered micro-influencers in marketing.
Who is a micro-influencer?
Micro-influencers are those influencers that generally have larger followings as compared to any general account but their popularity is limited when compared to celebrities.
Why do brands use micro-influencers?
Micro-influencers can promote a product or the brand itself. They can easily compel the people in favor of the product which can lead to the increasing popularity of the brand and its product. Hence, micro-influencers are used by brands to promote and socialize themselves.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by TrainerCentral.
In the last decade, edtech’s growth has been exponential and has transformed the way in which people teach and learn. People have become more welcoming to remote learning, thanks to the easy accessibility of the internet.
The conventional concept of requiring the physical presence of a teacher to teach a trade has become dormant. More and more people are moving towards online course platforms to share their knowledge with the global audience. The ability to share knowledge with learners across countries and create a streamlined business around their passion has significantly contributed to the growth of online course platforms.
There are always questions about why should a person use an online training platform when they can host live classes on Zoom and post videos on YouTube? The reason is simple, these single-purpose tools are not scalable and will create operational chaos as the business grows. Also, the autonomy of establishing your own training brand is missing here. So, online course platforms are the best tool of choice for course creators to streamline and manage different functions of the business.
TrainerCentral has been launched by Zoho to empower online training businesses and help learners. Read the startup story of TrainerCentral, the services offered, business model, marketing, and more.
TrainerCentral is a division of Zoho. TrainerCentral was conceptualized and developed by a boutique team of engineers with a mission to provide a truly all-in-one online training platform. The product was beta launched on August 2021 for select users and was made available for public on November 2021.
TrainerCentral is an all-in-one online training platform transforming the way trainers teach online. The platform offers a comprehensive tool kit for online trainers to create websites, draft course curricula, host live workshops, encourage community learning and generate revenue around their expertise.
TrainerCentral – Vision and Mission
TrainerCentral’s mission is to make knowledge sharing easy and accessible to all with the help of robust technology. They empower trainers with a unified platform to create, run and scale their online training business without the need to integrate multiple tools together.
TrainerCentral – Industry
TC caters to trainers, freelancers or individuals and basically anyone who wants to transform their talent into a successful profession- for instance a home-based teacher, yoga guru, a 12-year old teaching online gaming strategies, or a company upskilling their internal team. The platform is so intuitive that it fits any type of teaching requirement.
According to MRFR’s survey, the online teaching business is set to grow at a rate of 30% CAGR from 2022 to 2026.
TrainerCentral – Founders and Team
Aarthi Elizabeth – Chief Brand Evangelist of TrainerCentral
TrainerCentral team is a bunch of handpicked proven experts in development, marketing and sales. The team is growing rapidly to accommodate the product’s growth and goals. Aarthi is the Chief Brand Evangelist of TrainerCentral. She has experience in growing SaaS products that have won the market in competitive landscapes and is quite confident about TrainerCentral making a huge impact.
“With Trainer Central, they have addressed this digital gap in the e-learning market, by offering all essential tools on a single, easy-to-use platform so that creators can quickly establish their knowledge brand and nurture a dedicated community of learners, all while turning their passion into profit. As their learner community grows, the trainers can continue to scale their business on Trainer Central.” – Aarthi Elizabeth, Chief Brand Evangelist, Trainer Central.
TrainerCentral – The Idea and Startup Story
TrainerCentral Logo
The team did comprehensive research into the gaps in the existing technology and pain points of the online training community. Deep diving into their research they found that the current players had serious setbacks in not offering important tools and integrations that contributed to inefficiencies in online training businesses.
Upon thorough research, they started developing tools to provide a standout product that is deeply integrated, user-friendly and easily scalable. The product was reviewed by well-known trainers from different regions and the feedback was receptive and appreciating.
TrainerCentral – Products and Service
TrainerCentral – Online Training Platform
TrainerCentral is a cloud-based platform that incorporates various tool kits that enable seamless functioning of online training businesses. The product focuses on providing truly end-to-end solutions that enable trainers to manage various aspects of the business in one platform.
Trainers can create an exclusive website using the no-code drag-and-drop style website builder tools, upload course content, create learning methodologies, automate learner communications, host engaging live workshops, link bank accounts and receive payments and much more.
Trainers can also white label the platform by using customized domains for their website and email communications, thereby maintaining consistent branding and ownership.
TrainerCentral – USP and Innovation
TrainerCentral – Online Training and Learning Platform
USP of TrainerCentral products are:
No-code website builder To help create an online presence for trainers, they provide a no-code drag-and-drop styled website builder tool to build dedicated website for their business. The tool provides a library of pre-defined templates using the trainers can launch a website in a matter of minutes.
In-built live classrooms Live workshop is the most sought out feature by trainers in an online training platform. Trainers can now host live virtual classrooms without having to integrate their Zoom or Google Meet accounts. This feature cuts down the burden on trainers of subscribing and integrating different tools.
Breakout rooms feature in live workshops Breakout rooms are a feature to split live class attendees into small groups and create focused discussions and engagements. Trainers can also be assigned to different breakout rooms.
Intuitiveness and flexibility TrainerCentral is known for its intuitiveness and adaptability. The tool was developed from a trainer’s POV, so the platform is sequential and simplified. Anyone with basic computer knowledge can set up and launch an online course without any technical assistance.
White labeling The platform is white label friendly. Trainers can use customized domain for their website to maintain consistent branding. In addition to website domains, email communication domains can also be customized.
Payment gateway integrations TrainerCentral supports payment gateways such as Razorpay, Stripe, Paytm, Forte, Authorize.net, PayPal Payment Pro, and PayPal Payflow Pro.
Top-notch security TrainerCentral is GDPR compliant and follows robust security methodologies to ensure data privacy and security.
TrainerCentral is offered in three different pricing models.
Free Plan: $0 USD
Unlimited learners
Up to 3 free courses
Starter Plan: $16.67 USD/month when billed annually or $20 USD/month
Unlimited learners
Unlimited courses
Live virtual classroom (Up to 50 live participants)
Professional plan: $41.67 USD/month when billed annually or $50 USD/month
All the benefits of the Starter plan
Live virtual classroom (Up to 100 live participants)
Custom domain (full rebranding)
Coupons and discounts
Multi-currency support
TrainerCentral – Customer Acquisition
During the beta launch period, they signed up trainers from different industries and markets to understand the product fit and adaptability. This helped them to refine the product much better and create a wholesome experience for trainers irrespective of their industry.
They were able to convert 60% of their beta users to paying customers. Post public launch, the product started getting organic traction as people started starting their feedback on online forums.
TrainerCentral is focused on organic marketing and product-led growth. Their idea is to add more product value in a cost effective manner and this made them stand out in the market. TrainerCentral subscription charges are 50% lesser than any other providers in the market.
They are focused on content creation to scale the business further. As a team, they believe in long term focused marketing activities, thus spend 90% of their efforts on content.
TrainerCentral – Challenges Faced
The main challenge was to communicate the product’s unique value proposition and gain brand awareness during the initial phase. They focused on product positioning and streamlined communications, to resonate and empathize with potential customers and industry.
TrainerCentral user base is growing on an average of 25% MOM with promising signs to double in the next quarter. Currently, the user base is majorly from India and the US, and have plans to expand to Europe and Eastern countries.
TrainerCentral – Future Plans
TrainerCentral’s product map for the next 1-2 years is to develop the existing features more comprehensively and populate the integration library.
TrainerCentral – Competitors
Few of their competitors are:
Teachable
Kajabi
Thinkific
FAQs
What is TrainerCentral?
TrainerCentral is a cloud-based training platform for trainers and learners.
When was TrainerCentral founded?
TrainerCentral was founded in 2021 in Chennai.
Is TrainerCentral a part of Zoho?
TrainerCentral is a division of Zoho to empower trainers.
What is TrainerCentral pricing?
TrainerCentral Pricing:
Free Plan: $0 USD
Starter Plan: $16.67 USD/month when billed annually or $20 USD/month
Professional Plan: $41.67 USD/month when billed annually or $50 USD/month
Customer is the most important factor of a business, at the end of the day, the motto is to serve them. A business has to always ensure that their customer is getting served properly and this can only be possible through communication and interaction.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is generally used by marketing professionals and sometimes by customer support teams to interact with customers. CRM tools help online enterprises build strong relations with customers and retain them, in turn expanding the business and ensuring customer loyalty. There are many CRM tools in the market and although Salesforce is one of the most popular choice, there are still a number of Salesforce alternatives available out there.
There are a number of benefits of using a CRM such as optimized contact management for better customer reach and retention, advanced sales management, better team management and efficiency with a centralized data hub, accurate reporting, business insights and growth in business. All these utilities with just one software are hard to put aside, and hence online marketers and sales professionals often use a CRM, and the most common choice is Salesforce. In this article, we will talk about Salesforce and some of its popular alternatives. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
Salesforce is without a doubt one of the best Customer Relationship Management software, if not the best out there. With customer information tracking, insightful decision making and real-time data, automated email marketing, and 24/7 customer support team, Salesforce has helped businesses and online enterprises grow exponentially, and much faster.
Salesforce offers solutions for online businesses, sales, services, and marketing and owing to its excellent services, it has been bestowed several honours including the Number one spot in World’s Best Workplaces. Moreover, customizable CRM offers compatibility and adaptability, which is not often found in CRM software.
Although there are numerous applications of Salesforce in various domains, sometimes, its services are just way more than you can utilize. This leads to searching for alternatives to Salesforce, which offer specific functionality at lower costs, hence eradicating you of the quandary of spending more for lesser features. Here we share some CRM software which can be used as an alternative for Salesforce.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is a sales and marketing software that offers an all-around CRM platform with tools and services required to armour your business with best in class marketing tactics. With services in every domain of sales and marketing, HubSpot offers users free courses, eBooks and guides along with services such as Onboarding, Consulting and those of a Service Provider. Tools offered by HubSpot include Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Services Hub, and CMS Hub.
Features offered by HubSpot
Premium marketing features such as automation, SEO tools and video hosting.
Offers sales automation, e Signatures and lead scoring along with email sequences.
HubSpot comes with an interactive and analytical dashboard, deal pipelines and customizable reports.
Its Service Hub offers Customer Service Automation with multiple ticket pipelines and customer feedback.
HubSpot also offers tools for blog and content creation with SEO, live chat and security monitoring.
Pricing for HubSpot
Software
Starter
Professional
Enterprise
Marketing
Costs $45 per month, and offers tools such as landing pages, email marketing, and ad retargeting
Costs $800 per month and offers marketing automation, SEO recommendations, and custom reports with campaign reporting
Costs $3200 per month and offers services such as team management and advanced reporting with predictive leads
CRM and Sales
Costs $45 per month and comes with customizable sales properties, meeting scheduling, and other basic features
Costs $450 per month and offers sales analytics, custom reporting, eSignature and some personalization features
Costs $1200 per month and offers webhooks, custom objects, scalability, and reporting dashboard
Customer Service
Costs $45 per month and comes with live chats, conversational bots, and simple automation
Costs $360 per month and comes with ticket status and routing, and offers a better customer service with custom reporting and insight dashboard
Costs $1200 per month and helps user manage multiple teams slack integration along with webhooks
Pipedrive CRM
As suggested by the name, Pipedrive CRM allows you to manage and store leads from multiple sources in a pipeline view. Its drag and drop interface to manage leads and organized sales process are quite efficient in optimizing the sales process while the email sync allows you to send and receive mails, without switching to the email service. Moreover, customizable reports managed on synergistic dashboards further boost your business while also assuaging your work. Pipedrive also allows you to manage your work on your mobile devices through Android and iOS applications. Tasks ranging from keeping a record of customer interactions to setting and meeting sales targets to organizing your team, Pipedrive provides you all these services and more.
Features offered by Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a customizable service to cater to your specific needs. Be it adding new fields, pipelines, changing dashboard or products, Pipedrive offers you a personalized experience as a CRM tool.
Integrations with email, chat and other customer support services, Pipedrive allows you to cohesively work on marketing and sales, as a tech stack.
Pipedrive offers courses and workshops to completely understand and learn its applications and working, to extract the most out of the software.
Automation of marketing and sales job to eliminate task repetition is a great relief for marketers, and helps in optimizing business.
With insights from a plethora of user experiences, Pipedrive helps you decide a plan of action to implement for seamless management of your business.
Pricing for Pipedrive
Essential Pipedrive model
Advanced Pipedrive model
Professional Pipedrive model
Costs $12.5 per month per user when billed annually, $15 when billed monthly
Costs $24.9 per month per user when billed annually, $29 when billed monthly
Costs $49.9 per month per user when billed annually, $59 when billed monthly
Efficient to organize activities and setup pipelines to follow
Enables sales and marketing automation for efficient business management
Offers utilities encampassing tools for collaboration to advanced automation for revenue and business growth
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is one of the first names that strikes when we talk about a Salesforce alternative. From connecting to your customers remotely, and across different channels to automating leads and actions required, Zoho has all the features of an effective CRM. It offers an interactive and insightful dashboard that helps you monitor sales and business analytics, and predicts future developments based on real-time trends and statistics while also furnishing you with a conversational AI. The AI offered by Zoho, named Zia, identifies convertible leads, so they can be more focused on, in turn, generating more revenue.
Features offered by Zoho
Zoho offers Sales and workflow automation for better lead and account management, and to avoid repetition.
Reports, statistics, funnels and KPIs based on real-time analysis with Target meters to set and achieve milestones.
With predictive sales and Zia voice assistant, Zoho points out convertible leads and detects anomalies while also suggesting assignments and workflows.
With Zoho, you get to customize your page layout, views and fields, and add components and subforms.
Zoho makes project management and team collaboration efficient with tags, chats and groups while also providing data security and compliance.
Pricing for Zoho CRM
Standard Zoho Plan
Professional Zoho Plan
Enterprise Zoho Plan
Ultimate Zoho Plan
Costs Rs 720 per user per month, billed annually
Costs Rs 1200 per user per month, billed annually
Costs Rs 2100 per user per month, billed annually
Costs Rs 2300 per user per month, billed annually
Offers all the utilities in the free version along with scoring rules and workflow management
Offers all the utilities in the standard version along with SalesSignals and business blueprint
Offers all the utilities in the professional version along with Zia AI, a command center and a canvas layout
Offers all the utilities in the enterprise version along with advanced Business Intelligence and Zoho Analytics
Offers to build and manage multiple pipelines, send mass emails and customize dashboards
Helps build forms to collect user data, frame validation rules, and manage inventory
The Enterprise plan comes with advanced customization, portals for multiple users and, mobile SDK
Advanced features with Zia recommendations on different niche
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
Microsoft Dynamics is an adaptive sales solution built for an unpredictable sales environment, keeping in mind the uncertainty in today’s business world. With AI-powered Dynamics sales, you get to know the right clients to focus on, giving you a better lead conversion, while also cutting costs through sales and marketing alignment. Dynamics 365 Sales offers intelligent sales process automation, so you can focus more on engagement and innovative sales solutions, their integrations, and customization. Moreover, insights in previous deals and customer management also help in decision making for similar cases in the future.
Features offered by Dynamics 365 Sales
Single workspace, integrated multichannel tools, and AI predictive scoring help enterprises save time and have better customer interactions.
Dynamics 365 Sales offers a LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration to manage professional relations at scale and envisages customers’ perspectives with the help of surveys and customer data.
Dynamics 365 Sales finds you relevant content with an intuitive interface while saving you time for selling.
Features such as cross-team visibility, scanning business cards for avoiding manual entry, and streamlined workflow through Outlook and Excel enable coordination between sales and marketing, further boosting productivity.
Deal flow visualization, insights, and relationship analysis also helps accelerate sales performance.
Pricing for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Professional
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Premium
Comes with a core sales force automation at Rs 4295 per user per month
Comes with industry-level sales force automation at Rs 6280 per user per month
Comes with features of enterprise version with Sales Insights Add-ins at Rs 8925 per user per month
Offers all Microsoft Integrations without conversational intelligence such as pipeline analysis and coaching tools
Offers all Microsoft Integrations with conversational intelligence tools which require separate add-in licence
Offers all Microsoft Integrations with conversational intelligence tools including product and brand analysis and personalised dashboards
Does not offer any contextual insights
Offers contextual insights including pipeline intelligence and predictive scoring requiring separate add-in licence
Offers contextual insights including relationship and note analytics
Vendasta
Vendasta CRM is a unified sales and marketing solution, specially built for B2B sellers for SMEs. It offers great customer satisfaction with free products and upgrades paths while furnishing the users with management, social media, marketing and listing tools. Vendasta allows you to brand and sell your products the way you deem convenient while also providing detailed reports and analytics to your customers, to display your value. Moreover, even your clients can switch to online business with the free eCommerce tool given by Vendasta.
Features Offered by Vendasta
Continuous and real-time data analysis lets you know the requirements of customers. The AI based pipeline helps you manage those leads and to reach out to your prospect.
Meet scheduling, email marketing and all other tools required in a sales CRM are offered by Vendasta. With all these tools in one place, you can proceed with your sales team without any complicated integrations.
Client research with snapshot report helps you determine the right prospects to deal with.
Vendasta also offers real-time analysis of client engagement with the product; this helps you finding any flaws in your product and improving customer satisfaction.
Track all sales activities with real-time insights with leaderboards and pipeline management tools, while also recording all communications.
Pricing for Vendasta
Vendasta CRM Startup Model
Vendasta CRM Essential Model
Vendasta CRM Growth Model
Vendasta CRM Scale Model
Costs $42 per month and billed at $500 annually
Costs $299 per month and billed at $3588 annually
Costs $499 per month and billed at $5988 annually
Costs $999 per month and billed at $11988 annually
Designed for startups and fresh enterprises looking for client retention
Free onboarding and designed for business that have a base and are looking to establish themselves
With free onboarding, this model is designed for growing businesses and brands
With free onboarding, this model is designed as a commerce platform with team management tools
Offers 1 team member seat and up to 15% discount on resellable apps and services
Offers 5 team member seats and up to 30% discount on resellable apps and services
Offers 10 team member seats and up to 45% discount on resellable apps and services
Offers 15 team member seats and up to 65% discount on resellable apps and services
Offers 5 free snapshot reports and business toolkits, and 2500 emails sends per month
Offers 25 free snapshot reports and business toolkits, and 10,000 email sends per month
Offers 75 free snapshot reports and business toolkits, and 50,000 email sends per month
Offers 125 free snapshot reports and business toolkits, and 100,000 email sends per month
Conclusion
Managing customers and communicating with them is one of the main focuses of a business. Interacting with customers can be done through the help of CRMs. Salesforce has always been one of the best and most popular software for Customer Relationship Management but these alternatives also work quite fine.
FAQs
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM tools for support, sales, and for marketing teams.
What are the best alternatives to Salesforce?
Some of the best alternatives for Salesforce are:
HubSpot CRM
Pipedrive CRM
Zoho CRM
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
Vendasta
What is CRM?
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology through which you can make your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
Zoho is a very successful, award-winning, cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, provider. It’s also the trustworthy tech firm behind a long list of more than 40 commonly used web applications. These include project management, invoice applications, wikis, note-taking, databases, spreadsheets, reports, and word handling.
In this article, a review of the 6 most successful products of Zoho is done to help you determine whether they’re something you should consider for your company or not. This article will contain all the key advantages and explanations regarding how to boost the efficiency of your staff, increase your profits and enhance your work processes.
Founded in the year 1996, the Headquarter of the company is in Pleasanton, CA with branches in New Jersey, Beijing, Austin, London, and Tokyo. Zoho’s research and development software centres also operate in Chennai and Tenkasi in India, as well as Singapore and Beijing.
Top Zoho Product Reviews
A review of the 6 most successful Zoho Products is done to help you determine whether they’re something you should consider for your company or not.
1. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM Homepage
Zoho CRM covers the entire lifecycle of customer relations from lead generation to service and back. Zoho CRM is feasible to small as well as large enterprises that need cross-departmental CRM including support for marketing, sales, service, and tech.
Zoho CRM Key Features:
Automation of sales to screen leads and fast track deals like cross-sells up-sells.
Marketing automation to manage lead generation campaigns and to calculate results.
Cases and approaches to streamline sales/helpdesk service processes.
Inventory management to track goods and services pre and post-sales.
Zoho CRM Pricing Plan:
Zoho CRM Pricing
Zoho CRM Technical Details:
Supported Device: Android, Windows, iPad/iPhone, Mac, Web-based, Linux
Type of Customers: Small, Medium, Large scale Businesses, Freelancers
2. Zoho People
Zoho People is an intelligent, user-friendly HR software application that belongs to a complete Zoho suite for small business solutions. This famous HR management platform provides SMBs with a full suite of business applications and tools.
Moreover, it is a versatile and user-friendly tool that can be implemented out of the box immediately. This online Software is designed to control the entire range of HR processes within an organization. This will help to ensure that the potential of your employees is maximized. It is also ideal for companies searching for an HR platform that can be easily implemented without needing any further configuration.
Type of Customers: Small, Medium, Large scale Businesses, Freelancers
3. Zoho Books
Zoho Books Homepage
Zoho Books is an online accounting tool for handling every company’s financial aspects. This can manage invoices, bills, inventory, banking, and even perform mobile accounting effectively. The interactive accounting software aims to help small business owners better manage their finances. The application is user-friendly and allows businesses to easily create and send online financial forms designed by professionals.
Zoho Books Key Features:
Machined workflows.
Tracking and managing projects.
Integration stripe for faster reconciliation.
Runs on every computer and operating system.
Operates in more than 10 languages including German, English, and Japanese.
Type of Customers: Small, Medium, Large scale Businesses, Freelancers
4. Zoho Invoice
Zoho Invoice Homepage
A web-based invoicing software, this app is perfect for both freelancers and small businesses who want customers to project a more professional image. Zoho Invoice allows them to create their customized invoices, or to use templates for quick invoicing. The software would also be useful for companies with foreign clients or who bill by the hour.
Zoho Invoice Key Features:
Multilingual language functioning (up to 10 languages).
Connect to the gateway portal for payment or accept credit cards.
Tracking time for by-the-hour billing.
Role-based access that lets staff record their working hours.
Self-service portal which enables clients to view transactions and account statements.
Type of Customers: Small, Medium, Large scale Businesses, Freelancers
5. Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects Homepage
Zoho Projects is a customizable project and collaboration system that includes documents, calendars, tasks, and meetings management modules. The software is further expandable with add-on features such as wiki, time tracking, chat, and bug tracking for both small and large projects.
Type of Customers: Small, Medium, Large scale Businesses, Freelancers
6. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk Homepage
It’s a cloud recruiting app that helps to quickly track new talent from sourcing to hiring. Zoho Recruit is the main convenience of placing communication, documentation, and collaboration tools in one hiring platform. It substantially streamlines the entire recruiting process from publishing work items to handling resumes and shortlisting of eligible candidates to onboard hiring and recruitment.
Type of Customers: Small, Medium, Large scale Businesses, Freelancers
Conclusion
The above review is of the 6 most successful of Zoho’s creative product offerings for apps today. Essentially all of these 6 business applications in Zoho have similar elements but are distinguished by certain specific features and specifications.
For starters, they’re all integrated solutions — meaning they can all work with each other, but they do work as stand-alone apps. Each Zoho product from Zoho People to Zoho CRM — is also known for its ease of use and comprehensive integration with other Zoho products as well as third-party applications.
Also, every Zoho application offers intelligent automation to simplify even the most complicated daily activity.
Finally, these technological systems were gradually changing how we function, mostly for the better. Each Zoho product is likewise effective and efficient in solving business problems.
FAQ
What is Zoho famous for?
Zoho is famous for its online office suite and CRM software.
The concept of bootstrapping a business is nothing new. The term originates from the concept of “pulling yourself up by your own”. In the business world, the term generally refers to: “Financing and growing your business without the need for external assistance in the form of capital investment.”
In other words, it’s the “I’m doing it my way” approach to building a business. There’s a buzz today in the SaaS universe around bootstrapping. The wind has changed in some way and has spurred some conversation on the topic. That’s why I we bring to you the 5 best tips for bootstrapping your Startup.
Venture capital funding is at an all-time high in India. In 2017, Indian companies received VC/private equity funding to the tune of $17.6 billion, with Japan’s Softbank investing nearly a quarter of that amount in Flipkart, Paytm, and OYO.
It would appear as if nearly every tech-based start-up is backed by VC funds these days and if you want to make it to the big leagues, you need VC money. But a closer look reveals that this claim is not quite true. Bootstrapping may not only be a viable alternative to VC funding, but it might also actually be your ticket to startup success. So, take a look at the 7 bootstrapped SaaS startups who successfully secured bootstrapping.
People talk to your sales team to learn about and purchase your product
Your landing page call-to-action is “Request a demo”
Your primary growth channel is sales
The reason you should pick one is that it focuses on you. If you sell to a specific type of customer, in a specific way, it simplifies everything. Which features you build, how your pricing works, what you optimize your landing page for and more. Rather than doing alright at both, you can be excellent at one. Startups don’t win by being alright, they win by being excellent.
2. Simplify Everything
You can simplify more than just your sales model. You should strive to simplify everything your users interact with. From the top of the sales funnel to the bottom: your content, ads, landing page, pricing, onboarding, product, and more. People are busy. They have short attention spans.
They’re constantly being targeted by thousands of corporate agendas. If you make something the slightest bit difficult, they won’t take the time to figure it out. They’ll drop off. They’ll stop reading your blog post. They’ll close your landing page. They’ll quit using your product.
But if you make it easy, they’re far more likely to engage. And they’ll remember that “Yeah, this is easy to use”. In the early days, you need loyal fans. You need people to love your company, otherwise, growth will be an eternal grind.
More customers = More money = Doing better. Right? Wrong. The problem is that it makes your product and messaging unfocused. Consumer or customers need different features than SaaS customers. They also resonate with different messaging on the landing pages and in products. The consumer customers end up churning more.
It turns out that feedback is more valuable to SaaS companies because it drives revenue. Of course, hindsight is always 50-50. If you don’t know who your target audience should be, you don’t understand your users well enough. Get out of your office and talk to them.
How to Bootstrap your Business?
4. Ruthlessly Manage Your Time
In a start-up, there’s an endless list of things you could spend your time doing. How do you most efficiently spend your time? The worst part is that many activities feel productive but really aren’t. Take email, for example. If every time you get an email, you drop what you’re doing to deal with it, you’ll spend your entire day on email. Obviously, falling behind is a problem, but you can dedicate chunks of time to work through it. Context switches are expensive.
Another culprit is building features that aren’t mission-critical. Sometimes a customer asks for a feature, and it’s tempting to say “we’ll have it done today”. We’ve done this many times. We want to impress people and deliver value as fast as possible. It feels right, but you will end up building a lot of features that aren’t useful to many people. This isn’t an efficient use of time. It’s much better to pick one high-level strategy, and patiently execute it.
The best way to solve this is to set measurable goals. What is your team trying to accomplish this year, half, quarter, and month? What must be done to hit these goals? What can I work on today that will move the needle the most? Thinking this way helps you make unbiased decisions about how to spend your time. Otherwise, you’re just acting in the heat of the moment: inefficiently.
5. Be Helpful
On top of these things, remember that you are in the business of helping people. People buy your product because it solves their problems. The more you can get in the mindset of helping others, the better your company will do.
List of 7 Successful Bootstrapped Startups in India
Now, let’s look at some of the startups that were successfully bootstrapped.
1. Zoho: The operating system for business
Zoho takes its love for small businesses to the next level with its smart software offering. It is also considered, one of the best CRM for SaaS startups. The company enjoys a worldwide user base of 15 million and has over 33 products that help you achieve your sales & marketing, support, finance, and recruitment needs with a deep focus on business.
Zoho CRM
The company’s flagship product Zoho CRM is pitted as India’s answer to the behemoth grandpa of SaaS – Salesforce.com and emerges a clear winner in terms of price comparison with the latter. Founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas. Their team size is more than 2,500 and they are based out of Chennai.
2. Hotjar: All-in-one Analytics & Feedback
Hotjar is a new, powerful tool that reveals the online behavior and voice of your users. By combining both Analysis and Feedback tools, Hotjar gives you the “big picture” of how to improve your site’s user experience and performance/conversion rates. Hotjar is one of the best-bootstrapped saas companies.
Hotjar Heatmap
Founded in 2014 by David Darmanin & Erik Näslund, their team size is more than 100 and they are based out of St Julian’s, Malta.
3. Agile CRM: Built with love for small businesses
Agile CRM is a Sales and Marketing CRM for small and medium businesses. It’s complete with everything, from web pop-ups and email templates to advanced sales and marketing automation; and is designed to help small businesses sell and market like the Fortune 500, at a fraction of the cost.
Agile CRM is trusted by over 7,000 customers and fills in the space of a killer combo of CRM and Marketing Automation. Agile CRM is one of the best bootstrapped SaaS companies.
Agile CRM
Founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur Manohar Chapalamadugu. Their team size is 70, and they are based out of Hyderabad.
4. Aweber: Simple, Personalized Email Marketing and Automation
AWeber is an email marketing and automation platform – but they’re a bit different than the other services out there. They’re built for time-strapped content creators, small business owners, and entrepreneurs.
You’ll get access to easy-to-use automation tools to launch automated email sequences, tag and segment subscribers based on their behavior, send remarkable one-time promotional emails or newsletters, and track your success.
AWeber dashboard
Founded in 1998 by Tom Kulzer. Their team size is more than 100 and they are growing. They are based out of Pennsylvania, US.
5. FusionCharts: The most comprehensive JavaScript charting library
FusionCharts is a software provider of data visualization products (JavaScript Charts, Maps, Widgets, and Dashboards). The company has the most comprehensive JavaScript charting library, with over 90 charts and 1,000 maps, and is loved by 24,000 customers in 120 countries. FusionCharts is one of the best-bootstrapped saas companies.
Graphs by Fusioncharts
Founded in 2001 by 16-year-old Pallav Nadhani. Their team size is more than 100 and they are based out of Kolkata.
6. Kayako: Taking the helpdesk a long way
Kayako is a customer service software that scales with your business and makes it easy to deliver an unrivaled customer support experience. Today, Kayako is the leading multi-channel help desk that helps over 10,000 businesses to delight millions of their global customers.
Kayako
Founded in 2001 by Varun Shoor. Their team size is more than 150 and they began their operations from Jalandhar.
KooKoo is an interface between your web application and the caller. It takes phone commands from you and executes them on your behalf to the caller. KooKoo rightly fills the gaps of lack of time, manpower, and inefficiency of the current communication setup and minimizes the loss of business.
KooKoo is a product of Ozonetel, which was founded in 2007 by Murthy Chintalapati, a serial technology entrepreneur, and Atul Sharma, a product architect. Their team size is more than 100 and they are based out of Hyderabad.
Conclusion
So, these were some of the famous successfully bootstrapped companies. Bootstrapping may not only be a viable alternative to VC funding, but it might also actually be your ticket to startup success. Let us know your views on bootstrapping SaaS startups in the comments section below.
FAQ
What are examples of SaaS?
Examples of SaaS companies are BigCommerce, Google Apps, Salesforce, Dropbox, MailChimp, ZenDesk, DocuSign, Slack, Hubspot.
What is SaaS model?
SaaS is a method of software delivery that allows data to be accessed from any device with an internet connection and a web browser.
What is an example of bootstrapping?
An entrepreneur who risks their own money as an initial source of venture capital is bootstrapping.For example, someone who starts a business using $100,000 of their own money is bootstrapping.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made governments across the world to take measures to contain the spread of coronavirus. Many governments have implemented lockdown. So almost all the companies are asking their employees to stay home and work remotely as much as possible to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The companies are asking employees to keep in touch with one another while working in teams, with the help of phone & video conferencing. To increase the efficiency of work, the right software and tools must be chosen. Many are using video conferencing software like Zoom to get work done and talk to colleagues or family.
Video Conferencing tools have become the Need of the Hour
Zoom is one of the fastest-growing video conferencing apps out there. It’s easy to set up and host video calls. But due to recent security and privacy concerns about Zoom, the company has landed itself into trouble. While the company promises it’s working to address those issues, one can switch to other similar apps offering the same services rather than waiting to get issues solved.
There are plenty of video chat services, each with their advantages and disadvantages making them better suited to different uses. Some of these have free versions, some are paid while some offer temporary access to additional features if you need them. Though some are paid ones, they are worthy of spending money. This article will show you some of the best alternatives to Zoom.
The best alternative to Zoom is Cisco Webex Meetings. Webex is a video-conferencing app whose company was originally founded in 1995 and was subsequently acquired by Cisco in 2007. Since then, it is known as one of the best business applications and continues to focus on serving companies. It also offers a trial free version that’s worth checking out. It has expanded the features of the trial free version from 50 to 100 participants, removed of the 40-minute limit on meetings and added call-in abilities.
Cisco Webex Meetings
Webex also offers premium plans starting at $13.50 per month, per host. The premium plans offer additional features like cloud storage, recording transcripts, a downloadable video file of meetings, customizable meeting room links, and more. The company also sells a range of video conferencing products for business users such as the Cisco Webex Room Kit and the Cisco Webex Desk Pro.
It’s one of the great apps like zoom for small businesses that often hold short meetings, as the service offers a free plan. If that’s too short for you, upgrading to one of the company’s paid plans is the way to go. With Webex, one gets all the standard business-focused features one would expect.
Another alternative to Zoom app is Skype. Skypeis one of the few video-conferencing software that was made available to the public in 2003. It is popular for its high-quality audio and video due to its large bandwidth. It’s Meet Now feature offers free video-conferencing. Meet Now in Skype allows you to easily set up a collaboration space and invite both Skype contacts and friends or family who are not on Skype.
How do I create a meeting in Skype?
For more professional meetings and conferences, the paid version is also available – Skype for Business that helps you manage your employee accounts with enterprise-grade security. In standard Skype, number of participants is limited to 25 people on a conference call at once but Skype for Business raises this limit to 250, making it much more suitable for large-scale presentations, meetings or live webinars. It just costs $2 per user per month.
Key Features
Keeps a recording of the call for up to 30 days.
Can blur the background (if required).
Share presentations.
Skype for Business Price: $2 per user per month
Number of participants: Up to 250
Google Hangouts & Google Meet
If you need a google alternative to the Zoom app, we have Google Meet. Google Hangouts is a video-conferencing app by Google, which is free to use. You can use Hangouts to video chat with up to only 10 people. There aren’t a lot of features. You still have access to a text chat and can share your screen, but that’s all about it.
If you are an existing G Suite (paid) customer, you may want to consider looking at Hangouts Meet. Meet allows a few additional features like real-time captions and support for up to 250 participants and 100,000 live stream viewers. The video conferencing service is part of the company’s G Suite subscription that includes several other features.
Google Meet
G Suite starts at $6 per month per user and includes access to Gmail for Business and also up to unlimited cloud storage space, as well as access to all of Google’s other services such as Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. for your business. Thus, Hangouts Meet gives you all the business-centered tools you need to hold online meetings. You can record and then save them to Drive, easily invite people to join in via a link, and much more.
Key Features
Free plan available: Only Google Hangouts
Free trial: 14 days
Meet Pricing: Starts at $6 per month
Number of participants: Up to 250
Gives access to all of Google’s services like Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc
Another Zoom alternative is Microsoft Teams. In 2017, Microsoft replaced its Skype for Business tool with a new service called Microsoft Teams that combines messaging as well as video conferencing into one. It allows you to host online meetings for up to 250 people. You get all the business-focused features expected from a tool like this including screen sharing, instant messaging, and the ability to record meetings.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams pricing starts at $5.00 per month, per user. Microsoft’s video conferencing tool is just one part of the Google Teams subscription plan. You also get access to all Office apps, 1TB of OneDrive storage, and more. The exact features depend on the plan you go with.
Key Features
Free plan available: No
Free trial: No
Pricing: Starts at $5 per month
Number of participants: Up to 250
Zoho Meeting
Zoho Meeting is a nice alternative to Zoom app. It is a great tool for online meetings as well as webinars and comes with lots of features. You can share your screen, mute the mics of the participants, and record your group chats & calls among other things. And you can easily import documents, spreadsheets, and presentations since the service is integrated with Zoho’s Office suite. Zoho Meeting pricing starts at $8 per month.
Zoho Meeting
The open-source video conferencing service allows you to host end-to-end encrypted video meetings and calls for up to 100 people. Participants don’t need to sign up for a login; they can access the meetings through a link or a dial-in via web browsers, desktop clients, or mobile apps. Zoho has even provided a handy chart comparing its product to Zoom.
Key Features
Free plan available: No
Free trial: 14 days
Pricing: Starts at $8 per month
Number of participants: Up to 250
GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting is a feature-packed Zoom alternative and one of the first video conferencing services out there. The entry-level plan allows for 150 participants, while the enterprise plan can include up to 3,000. GoToMeeting pricing starts at $12 per month. It also offers a free 30-Day Trial.
GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting offers all the standard tools, like the ability to record meetings and share your screen. You can also have multiple meeting facilitators. And the service is accessible on web browsers, Mac, PC, Linux, iOS, and Android. Whether you’re a small business or a large company with thousands of employees, GoToMeeting has you covered.
When you want to offer a special member or audience the opportunity to learn from you or share the news with your fans who are excited to attend, you need to host seminar-like event. With your topic and materials on hand, all that’s left is setting up a webinar to broadcast the workshop. For this Crowdcast is a great tool.
Crowdcast is the most engaging and easy-to-use live streaming experience on the market. It is a browser-based solution for creating interactive webinars, live Q&As, workshops, and online summits that meet your needs. Crowdcast offers a simple platform to engage with attendees via live chat, polls, time-stamped Q&As, and face-to-face calls. Beyond collecting emails, Crowdcast provides advanced data and analytics around your event and audience and much more!
Crowdcast
Crowdcast tries to simplify that by making webinars a teaching tool to connect with your audience. Teachers, thought leaders, and professionals can use Crowdcast to reach out and share their knowledge with their fans and followers. Whether you’re hosting a workshop or a 3-day digital conference, you can create events where interaction and conversation are necessary.
Crowdcast costs little more due to its features at $49.00 per month. Managing live events successfully requires careful preparation and hard work. With multistream, built-in engagement tools, and quick payments for paid events, Crowdcast makes sure you only need to focus on bringing high-quality content toyour audience.
Key Features
Pricing: Starts at $49.00 per month.
Free trial: 14 days
Number of real-time viewers: Up to 3,000
Lets you hold digital conference up to 3 days
FAQs
What is Zoom app?
Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars.
Is Zoom secure?
Yes, it is secure.
Who are zoom competitors?
Competitors and Alternatives to Zoom:-
Microsoft
Google
Cisco
247meeting
TeamViewer
BlueJeans by Verizon
Zoho
Are there safer alternatives to zoom?
Yes, there are safer alternatives to zoom.
What is the safest way to use zoom?
To maintain the security of your next meeting, our recommendations are below:
Mandagiri Praveen Kumar Reddy
