India’s leading SaaS startup, Freshdesk, has joined the Startup Village Collective (SV.CO) in our mission to build a world-class platform for students to build Internet startups.
There are some partnerships which are truly realised only when two organisations come together to contribute meaningfully to an outcome that neither can create alone. Our partnership with Freshdesk to set up the “Freshdesk School of SaaS @ SV.CO” is one such partnership that will change the trajectory of the Indian SaaS industry.
Freshdesk began life in Chennai as a small startup in 2010. Today it has millions of dollars in revenues, 900 employees and more than 100,000 clients worldwide.
The Freshdesk story of industry disrupting service — a scalable, affordable, easy-to-use customer helpdesk for companies and organizations of all sizes — riding on the back of emerging technology trends, is an inspiration for budding entrepreneurs.
Freshdesk is now bringing its experience, all of it — from rising as a startup to a world-class service provider — to India’s brightest engineering students by partnering us for our flagship School of SaaS programme.
In the 90s, the global services outsourcing and delivery market ushered in India’s first IT services boom, and now product startups and SaaS industry in particular, hold the promise the second IT revolution.
Girish Mathrubootham, the founder of Freshdesk, understands the potential of SaaS as an entrepreneurial opportunity for the next generation entrepreneurs in India.
Girish has helped design the SV.CO programme framework, based on his experience of building and scaling Freshdesk, and focused sharply on the most important things students need to learn while they are starting up in the SaaS industry.
“We are glad to be on board with SV.CO on this programme, because this is exactly what we need to see happening in our campuses today; students working on meaningful projects, getting hands on experience of building things and gaining skills that will be of value to them when they get out of college,” says Girish. “Our industry needs young people with creative vision and skills, not just a degree, and at Freshdesk we are happy to contribute in any way we can to see that happen.”
All course content at SV.CO is designed according to industry requirements and benchmarked to global standards. What students learn here will help them pick up the key skills required in the SaaS industry.
SV.CO is building up this community of student startups to lead the change. At our ‘School of SaaS’ you are learning about the next big thing in software technology from the best in the business.
“Entrepreneurs in India look up to globally successful companies like Freshdesk for inspiration. It’s great to have them guide and mentor young college students building startups on the SV.CO platform, there’s nothing like learning from people who have been there and done it,” says Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman, SV.CO.
For the January 2017 batch of SV.CO, which had 135 founders in 33 teams, Girish gave a rousing course commencement address detailing his experiences and handing out some great advice to entrepreneurs just starting out. He has since had open office hours with the teams at Freshdesk and has been giving one-on-one mentorship to the winning teams.
The entire Freshdesk fraternity has got behind the idea of being ‘big brothers’ to our teams. The belief in SV.CO has trickled down from Girish to his peers and we couldn’t be happier about it.
In March, Freshdesk very graciously hosted the Alpha launch by 23 teams and 85 founders of SV.CO at the company’s headquarters in Chennai. A panel of 15 stellar Freshdesk employees judged the product demos and the finale of the product pitch.
Some have now offered to share their knowledge and experience through learning sessions and mentoring for the SV.CO teams. Our student teams will get real-time exposure to the startup process and to experts in the SaaS industry.
Student who are armed with this in-depth industry exposure, knowledge and skills; can now choose whether they want to build their own startup after college or join another startup to help founders build great companies.
