𝐔𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 — 𝐙𝐨𝐡𝐨

Zoho Corp. began between 1995 and 1996, starting with two bootstrapped businesses in the United States and India. In East Tambaram, Chennai, Shailesh Kumar, Sekar Vembu, and Kumar Vembu launched a home-based business. Kumar Vembu, after a year in the US, returned to India and found work in telecom software development.

📌Early Collaboration and Advent Network Management

In 1995, Tony Thomas founded a business in New Jersey, recruiting Sreenivas Kanumuru, now vTiger’s CEO, and securing a loan from his brother Joy Thomas. Tony developed a Java library for the SNMP API protocol. Sridhar Vembu, despite being introduced to Tony by a mutual acquaintance and having a Princeton PhD, initially struggled in Silicon Valley. He experimented with hardware but eventually worked as a contract programmer, which included a stint at Cisco fixing bugs in ATM switch software.

By mid-1996, Sridhar and Tony began collaborating. Sridhar, still financially unstable, joined Tony’s company, Advent Network Management, informally in 1997. He created business cards listing himself as “VP of Marketing and Business Development” and helped staff a booth at the Networld + Interop trade event in Las Vegas, where he unexpectedly made sales, defaulting into the role of salesperson due to Tony’s lack of sales acumen.

📌Initial Success and Product Development

In 1997, Advent Network Management made over $350,000 in sales but reinvested all earnings into R&D for their next product, Web NMS. The Indian branch focused on product development while the US branch handled sales, functioning independently. Sales exceeded $1 million in 1998, and in 1999, revenues quadrupled, prompting Sridhar to reluctantly accept the CEO role after pressure from Tony.

📌Dot-Com Bubble and Market Pivot

The company, renamed AdventNet, faced significant challenges during the 2001 dot-com bubble crash. By 2002, they persevered through a client downturn and pivoted to a new product, Manage Engine, by 2003. This software, designed to manage IT operations, saw widespread adoption, with 60% of its users making the Fortune 500 list.

📌Rebranding to Zoho Corp.

In 2009, AdventNet rebranded to Zoho Corp. Initially targeting home offices and small businesses, they sought the domain “SOHO” but settled on Zoho due to availability issues. They had already acquired Zoho.com around 2002. Zoho Corp. continued product diversification with divisions like Manage Engine, WebNMS, and Zoho University.

📌Product Development

Zoho released Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheets, and Zoho Docs, competing with Google Docs and Sheets in the same year. Realizing the competition’s intensity, Zoho pivoted to customer relationship management (CRM) and launched Zoho CRM. In 2005, Zoho Schools started, initially offering free training but later evolving to paid education, producing over 1,400 graduates.

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