2 Years @ Freshworks = A journey of Delight

Let me start this with an honest confession: I have never met G. Except in company town halls. And you know how crowded town halls have been getting lately with the Freshworks kudumba!

And yet, whenever someone posted a picture of themselves with G in Times Square on our public listing, it felt like that someone was me.?

That's what culture can do to you, I guess. It makes you happy in your work environment, soaking in the success of the team and celebrating the triumph of the collective spirit.

For the uninitiated, G is Girish Mathrubootham, the founder-CEO of Freshworks. Kudumba means family in the Tamil language.

I vividly remember this story G often tells in the all-hands meetings. It goes something like this: Once a man saw a few people breaking stones at a construction site. He approached one of them and asked, “What are you doing?” The person retorted sharply, “Eh, can’t you see? I’m breaking stones.” The man moved to another person doing the same, seemingly drab task but with intent and focus. Asked the same question, this one’s face brightened up. “Oh, you know what, we are building a temple here and all these stones will soon be a part of it, housing the deity.”

When G rang the Nasdaq opening bell with joy on September 22, I couldn't help but play that inspiring story over and over in my mind. How the peals of that bell echoed in the whole SaaS ecosystem in India and fired the imagination of so many entrepreneurs is now only too well known.

I did meet a bunch of amazing people in my little over two years at the cloud software company—yeah, the one that aims to help businesses delight their customers and employees with modern, agile tools.

First and foremost, I must thank Jayadevan, who is the one who hired me and with whom I continue to work. He’s more of a friend than a boss. Wait a minute: this strangely seems to be true of most of my former bosses, including Pankaj Mishra and Leslie D'Monte. Long-time friend Pankaj charmed me into joining his startup FactorDaily , where I first met JPK (as Jayadevan PK is more popularly known). Previously, at Mint , the business paper from HT Media, Leslie and I played carrom and interviewed tech leaders with equal ease and finesse. It's a similar tale with my dear friend-cum-boss Rahul Neel Mani of Grey Head Media .

But then I digress...

Coming back to Freshworks, there is Arvind Parthiban (now busy building SuperOps.ai ) with whom I shared a few lunches and several jokes in the company of his perennially cheerful team of corporate marketing folks (the function is now called global brand marketing and headed by the suave and meticulous Vasken Guiragossian). I’m based in Delhi but, before the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, would often visit our office in Chennai. The filter coffee was great (just as Freshworks folklore puts it) and the kind server at the counter knew how I liked mine in almost no time.

Two special mentions are Sreelesh Pillai and Arun Pattabhiraman. I captured their journeys in our Humans of Freshworks series and am thankful to them for being so open and candid in our conversations. (You can read Sree’s story here and Arun’s here .)

Freshworks is not just a welcoming place for employees but a great home for former entrepreneurs, too. Our ongoing Founder Talk series bears testimony to that, and I really enjoyed this discussion with Senthil Kanthawamy in which he revealed what being an entrepreneur both in the outside world and inside Freshworks has meant.

And, of course, our HR chief Suman Gopalan, who always exudes warmth and has freely shared her ideas and thoughts in a couple of blog posts on which I worked with her. (Here’s one on CHAT , the Freshworks culture code).

From writing and editing articles about the tech industry at large all these years to capturing the aspirations of one of its freshest visionaries has indeed been an exciting and amazing experience for me.

Among the key things I've learned are the importance of empathy, caring for each other, and how collaboration can bring out the best in teams regardless of boundaries.

Many people ask this question of new recruits as well as existing employees they happen to interview: "So, where do you see yourself five years from now?"

Were one to put this query to me, I'd say, "I don't know." What I do know is that I'm not in a mood to ponder over such unpredictable things as career crystal-gazing in the age of rapid change, black swan disruption, and artificial intelligence.

At the moment, it makes more sense to enjoy the scenery as I traverse the path. In all likelihood, the journey, as they say, may have only just begun.

Will have more to share as we go I’m sure. Thank you for reading :)