Girish Mathrubootham started small. That didn’t last long. Four days after launching Freshworks, his customer service platform in October 2010 from an air conditioning duct warehouse in Chennai, a metropolis in the South of India, and staffed with a team of six rockstar programmers, his startup was instantly international. Atwell College, a public high school in Perth, Australia, nearly four thousand miles away, spent a couple of hours poking around the platform Mathrubootham envisioned as an empowering customer experience, and signed on as the first Freshworks customer.

吉里什马斯博瑟姆从小做起。但这并没有持续太久。2010年10月，他在印度南部城市钦奈(Chennai)的一个空调管道仓库里推出了客户服务平台Freshworks,并组建了一个由六名摇滚明星程序员组成的团队, 四天后他的初创公司立刻国际化了。阿特韦尔学院(Atwell College)是澳大利亚珀斯(Perth)的一所公立高中,距离该校近4000英里(约合4800公里)。马斯博瑟姆把这个平台设想为一种强大的客户体验，在那里花了几个小时，最终签约成为Freshworks的第一个客户。

Within 200 days—and no outside funding—Freshworks had 200 small and medium business customers spread across the globe. Venture capital firms such as Accel, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital caught wind of the startup’s steep trajectory and in 2018, Freshworks raised $100 million in Series G funding, hitting a $1.5 billion valuation and becoming India’s first enterprise tech unicorn. Now, in a week packed with public offerings, the Freshworks IPO is the most hotly anticipated, having raised $1.03 billion and joining Nasdaq on Wednesday with a $10.13 billion valuation. The company has priced 28.5 million shares at $36 per share.

在没有外部资金的200天内，freshworks在全球拥有了200家中小企业客户。Accel、Tiger Global和红杉资本(Sequoia capital)等风投公司发现了这家初创公司的惊人的发展轨道。2018年，Freshworks在G轮融资中融资1亿美元，估值达到15亿美元，成为印度第一家企业科技独角兽公司。如今，在忙碌准备公开募股的一周中，Freshworks的IPO是最受期待的，它已融资10.3亿美元，并于周三以101.3亿美元的估值加入纳斯达克。该公司将2850万股股票定价为每股36美元。

“If you asked me, did we know that we are going to go public in the U.S. or we will become this successful, I would have said absolutely no,” Mathrubootham, 46, tells Forbes. Now headquartered in San Mateo, California, Freshworks serves 50,000 customers in 120 countries. It’s expanded offerings explain excitement around its IPO. Along with turn-key customer service software, the four-time list maker on the Forbes Cloud 100 offers a full suite of enterprise tech software tools supporting sales, productivity, marketing, human resources and IT.

46岁的马斯博瑟姆在接受《福布斯》采访时表示:“如果你问我，我们是否知道自己会在美国上市，或者会取得如此大的成功，我会说绝对不知道。”Freshworks总部位于加州圣马特奥，服务于120个国家的5万名客户。它扩大了上市范围，这也解释了人们对其IPO的兴趣。除了交钥匙（turn-key）客户服务软件，这家四次入选福布斯云计算100强的公司还提供一整套支持销售、生产力、营销、人力资源和IT的企业技术软件工具。

“Our mission is very clear,” Mathrubootham says. “We want to make it fast and easy for every business to delight their customers and their employees.” As Freshworks enters what the company estimates as a $120 million market, it faces heavyweight competition. Key rival Salesforce generates $21 billion in annual revenue. Zendesk, Oracle, Atlassian and Microsoft are also in the mix. Mathrubootham doesn’t fear the competition. “We truly believe that the world of CRM (customer relationship management technology) needs a refresh, pun intended. Plus, it’s a huge market,” he says.

“我们的使命非常明确，”马斯博瑟姆说。“我们希望让每一家企业都能快速、轻松地取悦他们的客户和员工。”Freshworks预计这个市场的规模将达到1.2亿美元，它面临着激烈的竞争。主要竞争对手Salesforce的年收入为210亿美元。Zendesk、甲骨文、Atlassian和微软也在其中。马塞洛布瑟姆并不害怕竞争。“我们真的相信CRM(客户关系管理技术)的世界需要更新。此外，这也是一个巨大的市场。”

It’s a huge step for an Indian enterprise software company to go public in the U.S., says Shekhar Kirani, a partner at Accel, one of the initial investors in Freshworks. “When Freshworks started there were no other global SaaS tech companies out of India and no mainstream investors were excited,” says Kirani, who loved the product Girish and team had built and invested $1 million funding in 2011. Freshworks now shares the India startup spotlight with 100 unicorns, according to Credit Suisse. The country is currently experiencing a tech boom, and Indian food delivery startup Zomato only increased the investing frenzy when its shares jumped over 80% during its market debut in July.

Freshworks最初的投资者之一、Accel的合伙人谢卡尔·基拉尼(Shekhar Kirani)表示，对于一家印度企业软件公司来说，在美国上市是一大步。Kirani说:“Freshworks刚成立的时候，印度以外还没有其他全球性软件即服务技术公司，主流投资者也没有对此感到兴奋。”Kirani很喜欢Girish和他的团队在2011年创建的产品，并投资了100万美元。据瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)称，Freshworks现在与100家独角兽公司一样成为印度初创企业的焦点。印度目前正经历一场科技热潮，而印度外卖初创公司Zomato在7月份上市时的股价飙升超过80%，更是加剧了投资热潮。

Times have changed since Freshworks’ zero-funding days in the air conditioner duct warehouse. “Our grouping goal in 2011, when we launched our first product, Freshdesk, was to try and get to $1 million revenue.” In the first six months of 2021, Freshworks reported $168.9 in revenue and a loss of $9.8 million, compared with $110.5 million and a loss of $57.1 million for the same period in 2020. Freshworks has grown from six employees to more than 4,000 employees, with 80% working out of India.

自从Freshworks在空调管道仓库提供零资金以来，时代已经发生了变化。2011年，当我们推出第一款产品Freshdesk时，我们的目标是实现100万美元的营收。”2021年前6个月，Freshworks报告收入168.9美元，亏损980万美元，而2020年同期为1.105亿美元，亏损5710万美元。Freshworks已经从6名员工发展到4000多名员工，其中80%在印度工作。

Mathrubootham spent 10 years at Indian web-based tools company Zoho, rising to the rank of vice president of product management, but he was inspired to launch Freshworks following an unfortunately familiar bad customer service experience. He sought to fix that widely shared bad experience by developing and providing easy to use software that facilitates better customer engagement.

马塞洛布瑟姆在印度网络工具公司Zoho工作了10年，后来晋升为产品管理副总裁，但不幸的是，一次糟糕的客户服务经历让他受到启发，创办了Freshworks。他试图通过开发和提供易于使用的软件来改善这种已经普遍的糟糕体验，以促进更好的客户参与。

From that idea to Wednesday’s IPO, Mathrubootham hit a few rough patches. He recalls that one of the tougher phases for him as a CEO was in 2015 when he was still trying to manage every front of his booming business, including customer calls and negotiating discounts. “So that's when I decided I need to build a management team,” he says, adding that struggle was integral to building the product and dreaming big. “I am a believer that startups actually get creative when there are constraints. I don't think if I started Freshworks today all over again, we probably may not be even successful.”

从这个想法到周三的IPO，马斯博瑟姆遇到了一些困难。他回忆说，作为CEO，他最艰难的阶段之一是在2015年，当时他还在努力管理他蓬勃发展的业务的每一个方面，包括客户电话和谈判折扣。他说:“因此，我决定组建一支管理团队。”他补充说，奋斗是打造产品和实现远大梦想的必要条件。“我相信，创业公司在受到限制的情况下，实际上会发挥创造力。我不认为如果我今天重新创办Freshworks我们就不会成功。”

“We wanted to show that world-class products can come from India,” Mathrubootham remembers. Now, he is confident that this company’s products qualify among the best in the world and proud that Freshworks is setting an example for India’s emerging enterprise software startups. “Our IPO is giving a lot of hope to founders,” he says. “As a country, I think we all believe that SasS is the next big opportunity for India.”

“我们想要证明世界级的产品可以来自印度，”马斯博瑟姆回忆道。现在，他相信Freshworks的产品是世界上最好的，并为Freshworks为印度新兴的企业软件初创企业树立了榜样而感到自豪。“我们的IPO给了创始人很大的希望，”他表示。“作为一个国家，我认为我们都相信SasS是印度的下一个巨大机遇。”