A quick look into Zoho and the vision: Take Silicon Valley to village

Zoho & the story of a capitalist doesn't care about net worth.

Jul 31, 2023

In July, I received a request from my team for quick research about one of the most popular collaboration platform in the world: Zoho.

During my research, I came across some interesting stories about Zoho’s founder, so I made this slide and share with you some quick information and personal thoughts about Zoho.

Zoho is a platform that offers a suite of business, collaboration, and productivity applications. Unlike other Tech startups & IPO companies, Zoho is famous for reaching $1B Revenue without a dime of external investment (according to Techcrunch).

Let’s go through some Zoho’s highlight numbers:

Founded year: 1996 (27 years till now)
Rev 2021: ~$1B with Profit: $255.7M
90M+ users of 55+ products
~12.000 employees with 26 offices

From 2005 to 2022, Zoho has developed more than 55+ applications used by 90M+ users worldwide. The platform contains: Sales & Marketing, Finance, IT & Helpdesk, Human Resources, Email & Collaboration, Office Suite and Custom Solutions.

Sridhar Vembu, 53, is the founder and CEO of Zoho Corp. In his late 20s, he founded AdventNet in 1996 to make software products. In 2009 he renamed the company Zoho Corp to reflect the transition from a software company serving network equipment vendors to an online applications provider.

Vembu was born in a village in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur district into a family of farmers and later went on to study at Princeton University and lived around the San Francisco Bay Area. Until October 2019—months before the Covid-19 pandemic erupted— he made the big move to the small town Tenkasi (650 km from the Tamil Nadu capital) with the vision: To take Silicon Valley to the village.

As of 2022, Zoho has two rural offices, one in Tenkasi and the other in Renigunta in Andhra Pradesh, with 500 of its 9,300 employees globally working out of these offices. The plan is to have many more of its 8,800 India-based employees working out of non-urban India.

A typical day of Vembu’s rural life usually begins at 4 am when he makes calls to the US offices. By 6 am, he’s off for a long walk and, on occasion, a swim in the village well. Snake-spotting, and a few times even catching them, is one activity during the stroll. He returns for breakfast, after which he takes stock of engineering projects, reviews codes and takes customer calls. Then it’s time to indulge in a bit of what his ancestors did for sustenance.

There is a quote of Vembu that made our team very impressed:

“I am a capitalist, but I don’t care about net worth.” - Sridhar Vembu,
founder and CEO of Zoho Corp

Another interesting things I found out when research is the page of Human of Zoho in the event of 25 years.

Here you can find out the employees have worked for 10+, 15+, 25+ years in Zoho: the stories from the first day till now, their perspectives about work and even their personal lives.

For example, you can see in the profile of Yoshihito Yamashita (Vice President, Data Center Operations, Zoho USA with 25+ years in Zoho) all the photos & stories from the first day of Zoho Japan and Zoho China.

Or you can find Mary George Mayiladumpara (General Counsel, 16+ years with Zoho, joined as the only lawyer in 2006, within a year of completing degree in law) still loves learning about the science of agriculture and farming.

Some personal thoughts:

In the chapter 03 book “Built to last” (by Jim Collin & Jerry I Porras), the research shows that a fundamental element of a visionary company is a core ideology - core values and sense of purpose beyond just making money - that guides and inspires people throughout the organization and remains relatively fixed for long periods of time.

A core ideology = A higher purpose + A set of core values.

Researching about Zoho gives me the feeling of a company like that. Hailing from India, they built a platform with 90M+ users and employ 12,000 people.

It come back and made me think, “So what is the purpose of my work and my company?”.

Then I remembered a post from my big boss, Mr Eric:

If you are a modest person doing business with dignity and you don't want to do anything fishy, it ends up in only two things: extreme love and extreme hard working.

So that if you are lucky enough to succeed someday, you can proudly tell your children that: "We did try really hard".

That is the reason these first builders come to join True today. Big love.

That’s the reason I am here today.

—

A quick look into Zoho and the vision: Take Silicon Valley to village

Zoho & the story of a capitalist doesn't care about net worth.

Reference:

(1) https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/10/how-zoho-became-1b-company-without-a-dime-of-external-investment/

(2) https://www.similarweb.com/website/zoho.com/#overview

(3) https://www.forbesindia.com/article/big-bet/cover-story-sridhar-vembus-vision-from-the-village/59833/1

(4) https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/zoho

(5) https://www.grahammann.net/book-notes/built-to-last-jim-collins

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