kovai.co founded by Saravan Kumar said that the company intends to reach

wants to make the situation more soon coimbatore A Center of Software as a Service (mother-in-law) companies, like Chennai. In an interview with ET’s Diya Rekhi, Kumar said that Freshworks’ Nasdaq listing fueled his ambitions to take his own company public, while outlining a roadmap for it.
Winner in Bootstrap Champion Category At the Economic Times Startup Awards 2021. Edited excerpt:

Was it a conscious decision to remain bootstrapped?

There was no need to obtain funding because the original product was an enterprise product, and the ticket size was high. Therefore, the cash flow was always there. We were able to scale the company using the money we received from customers. It really depends on the product. Some of the new products we’re building, such as the general purpose one, Document 360, have completely different marketing and sales velocity. We are spending a lot of money now. Fortunately, we’ve generated a lot of cash flow through all of our products over the past 10 years.

How have your company’s ambitions evolved over time?

As of 2019, we were very optimistic, very frugal, and only had 60 people company. Around the end of 2019, we thought about what we could achieve in Coimbatore that could have a big impact on the city. That’s when we made a plan for 2030. We felt there was a huge opportunity with what’s happening around SaaS and the general product space around the world and we could execute it from Coimbatore and be a unicorn out of town. Zoho and Freshworks have done it in Chennai, and we saw an opportunity to replicate it in Coimbatore.

What made Coimbatore the ideal home for a .co?

Coimbatore is an entrepreneurial city. There is a lot of textile industry and other manufacturing industries, but when it comes to software, not much has been done, and we see that as an opportunity. We can be at the forefront of doing something by taking that space and creating an ecosystem. That’s exactly what is happening. A lot of our people are moving to other companies as well, and we see a lot of new startups coming in. So, the two goals are to make it big and achieve unicorn status and build an ecosystem in Coimbatore to have a lot of startups in the future.

With Freshworks IPO, Are There Too Many Investor Questions?

We receive at least a few new investor questions every week. Sometimes, even takeover requests, but we just want to be very focused and not deviate. We only take cash when needed because it adds more complexity and unnecessary distractions to what we are doing. There is a lot of interest now and clearly there is a lot of money in the market, but we will try to stay bootstrapped and only take money when there is a clear need.

What is your big vision for SaaS in Coimbatore?

We want to build a model and prove that cities like Coimbatore can make world class products. We are going to focus on Coimbatore for at least one year or 18 months and establish this model. Then, there is an opportunity to replicate that model in other tier two cities. But maybe we don’t even need to do that because there is so much talent pool available even at Coimbatore level, it’s just about taking them and getting them industry ready, then deploying them and creating great products. Once we figure out a model, that can become a playbook for many other companies in other cities like Trichy, Salem and Madurai.

Has the Freshworks listing given you IPO aspirations as well?

After Freshworks IPO, we are thinking that we might be the first SaaS company from Coimbatore to go public as well, as what Girish (Freshworks founder Mathrobootham) has done proves that anyone can do an IPO. Now, we are seeing how we can do this from Coimbatore. In the next five to six years, likely, and we look to Freshworks and Zoho as our role models.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a busy time for SaaS companies. How has hiring and growth been for you?

On an average, we are hiring eight to 10 people month after month since March 2020. This is how we have grown from 60 people to over 240 companies in the last 18 months. In terms of customers also, month on month we have seen steady growth and we are still achieving the target. Being a bootstrapped company, we are not dependent on outside investors. The revenue we generate is helping us grow and grow the company.

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