12 Udemy Courses with Entrepreneurship Case Studies

Entrepreneurship is not a career. It is a way of life.

For me, this journey began as a graduate student at MIT in 1994. The world watched Netscape go public that spring, and the Internet swept over us like a virus. As I wrote my Masters thesis, I also wrote my first business plan. We were, as a generation, shaping the Internet during those early years, and, my degree in hand, I was ready to jump into the unknown – from then on really, I have been jumping into unknowns at every turn.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What kind of jobs were you doing?

Vanessa Jeswani: I was doing marketing consulting, primarily for a PR firm.

Kish Vasnani: I was doing a lot of sales and business development work for a marketing agency. They had a lot of inbound interest but never had anyone take those leads and develop them further. It was about 10 to 20 hours of work. I didn’t even get paid for that. I made a deal with the owner. I said, “I’ll dedicate this much time. Can you please pay for my and Vanessa’s insurance?”

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Was Nomad Lane started as an Etsy store?

Vanessa Jeswani: It was called something else. When we noticed that it was travel-related items that were kicking off, we rebranded it to Nomad Lane.

Sramana Mitra: This was 2016?

Putting the Freshworks IPO in Context (Part 4)

Global Impact

The other thing to note is the globalization of entrepreneurship aspect of the Freshworks story.

Girish has proved “Made in Chennai” is possible. Unlike other Indian CEOs running SaaS companies, he never shifted the center of gravity of Freshworks away from Chennai.

Putting the Freshworks IPO in Context (Part 3)

Broader Implications

I have been watching with delight how the Indian startup ecosystem is celebrating the success of Freshworks. 

Indian entrepreneurs have found their celebrity role model in Girish Mathrubootham.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Kish and Vanessa bootstrapped to multi-million dollars in revenue selling a private label product before quitting their job. In this story, you also get to see the nuances of running successful (and not so successful) crowdfunding campaigns. Very interesting journey and insights.

Putting the Freshworks IPO in Context (Part 2)

Freshworks’ Financials

Within two years of its launch, Freshdesk joined the 1Mby1M Million Dollar Club. Revenues were estimated to have grown to a $10 million annual run rate by the end of 2013. In December 2011, the company raised its first Series A funding for $1 million, $5 million in 2012, and $31 million in 2014. So far, the company has raised $484 million in over nine rounds and has acquired 13 capital-efficient startups, several of which were funded by Girish as an angel investor.

Putting the Freshworks IPO in Context (Part 1)

On Nov 13, 2009, I wrote an article in my Forbes column titled India’s Next Celebrities. It was a year after the financial crisis.

Never mind the recession. In India, entrepreneurial energy has continued to grow. It still exists only in small pockets. And the sophistication of the entrepreneurial ecosystem has a long way to go before it can resemble anything like Silicon Valley–or even Israel. In this evolution, the Indian media has an important role to play.

At the time, I was busy trying to turn Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, into a celebrity. Hardly anyone had heard of HIM until my 2007 profile.

I had not yet launched 1Mby1M.

Girish Mathrubootham, avid fan of celebrity Tamil film star Rajnikant, had not yet launched Freshdesk (now Freshworks). He was still working at Zoho, under Sridhar’s tutelage.

Both of those events happened in 2010.