Sridhar Vembu’s Remarkable Story from 0 Funding to ₹40,000 Cr Worth Company, Zoho Corporation

Let’s being:

The story behind this Unicorn company is that of a person who is still connected to the roots of his village after building an Rs40,000 crore-worth company. Whenever he chose a path of entrepreneurship, he never looked back, kept his self-belief, and dealt with challenges. In order to pursue his mission, he also quit his well-paying job. Let’s know the story, strategy, motivation, inspiration, and challenges behind this remarkable story.

Sridhar’s unwavering enthusiasm chose a challenging path, and he never looked back; even in order to pursue his mission, he also quit his well-paying job.

About Sridhar Vembu:

Sridhar was born in a small village in Tamil Nadu, where his family worked as farmers. After some time, his father moved to Chennai and started working as a stenographer in the High Court. During this period, Sridhar took the JEE exam, achieved an impressive All-India rank of 27, and got admission to IIT Madras. He became the first person in his family to graduate, choosing to study electrical engineering. Sridhar’s passion was to build computers and machines by hand, and he decided to pursue a career as either a scientist, a professor, or a researcher in this field.

After completing his engineering degree at IIT Madras, Sridhar pursued further studies at Princeton University, where he earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering. In 1994, he secured a job at Qualcomm. However, soon he left the job to establish his own company, which eventually grew into a profitable unicorn. After building a company worth Rs 40,000 crore, he remains connected to his village. During the pandemic, the company thrived with Rs 6,711 Cr in revenue and Rs 1,918 Cr in profit, while he continued to enjoy his simple village life, riding his bicycle.

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Inspiration Behind His Empire:

After completing his PhD, Sridhar secured a well-paying job at Qualcomm. Everything was going perfectly, but still he had a fire in his heart that NO! And he wanted to do something more amazing.

In 1996, Sridhar's brother, Kumar Vembu, came up with the idea of launching their own company. They decided to establish it in India, with the goal of generating employment and bringing recognition to their country. This mindset inspired Sridhar to take on a more challenging path and come back to Chennai with his brother.

From Concept to Creation:

After returning to India, both brothers embarked on their mission to revolutionize the software industry. In 1996, they founded "Advent Net," a company focused on creating computer software and providing web-based business tools. The company quickly gained rapid success, with everything progressing smoothly and the business booming.

By 1998, AdventNet had generated ₹6 crore in sales, and by 2000, sales had surged to ₹50 crore. During this time, investors offered significant deals, but Sridhar declined them. Everything was going fantastically well, but then a market crash changed everything.

But most of the employees had no more work to do; this time Sridhar said, "We don’t have much to do right now, so let’s think about what new product we can launch in the market." They decided to enhance their existing product, which was already doing well, and make it even better. As they worked on upgrading their ERP software, they developed a new product called "Manage Engine." All these things led him to the creation of “Zoho.”

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About Zoho:

The company decided to develop new software, and they named it "Zoho." Zoho provided applications for all business functions, such as HR, management, hiring, and finance. The software was hosted on Zoho’s servers, and users could conveniently download and use it online.

Here he followed a strategy, observing that big companies were focusing on software for large enterprises, so he chose to provide affordable solutions for smaller businesses. This approach proved highly effective, leading to a sudden increase in the number of clients. With a high-quality product and a smart strategy, Sridhar achieved significant market success.

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The company was still called AdventNet, and its product was known as Zoho. However, since the company was registered in the US, they decided to register a separate entity in India. In 2009, they did so and named the Indian branch “Zoho Corporation.”

Future plan of Zoho:

The founder, who continues to lead a simple village life, envisioned a future where opportunities were created in rural areas rather than cities. Slowly but surely, this vision is becoming a reality, as more than 5,000 people now live in the village and work from the company’s local center, transforming the area into a vibrant hub of innovation and economic growth. By bringing jobs and opportunities to the village, the founder is establishing a model for sustainable development that challenges the traditional belief in urban migration.

This is more than just a business story—it's a movement to create opportunities in villages, proving that success doesn't have to mean leaving your roots behind.