Recently, I came across a tweet that I haven't been able to get out of my head. This is what it posits: the spectrum of human personality is shaped like a horseshoe, with complete authenticity on one end, and complete fakeness on the other end. Due to this, it is often difficult to determine whether someone's personality is wholly authentic or wholly fake. This is often a conundrum on social media, where startup founders—and corporate fatcats in general—tend to indulge in navel-gazing and tone-deaf philosophising. The cult of personality that surrounds this performance only makes it harder to separate the genuine from the performative. It's, therefore, a refreshing change to hear these success stories through the eyes of someone with a ringside view to them. That's essentially what today's story is. In today's piece, we at Mumbai Multimedia Studio charts the journey of SaaS giant Freshworks, currently poised on the brink of an IPO, through the story of its co-founder — Girish Mathrubootham. It is a decade-long story, starting with a demo at a startup competition and set to culminate (though not conclude) in a massive public offering that values Freshworks at $10 billion. The story is not one that simply dispassionately dissects business models, but rather understands the people and mindsets behind Freshworks' approach.
