Freshdesk goes shopping at WalmartLabs and bags its head

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Freshdesk has come a long way from its early days when a Yahoo designer turned down an offer because he didn’t want to move to Chennai. Now, with offices across the world from San Bruno to Chennai, this Indian SaaS (software-as-a-service) success story is attracting top global talent.

Today Freshdesk announced the appointment of S.T.S. Prasad as senior VP of engineering. Prasad was VP of engineering at Kosmix which got acquired by Walmart. He then founded WalmartLabs and built it up over the past five years.

Freshdesk has been on an aggressive expansion mode. The leading customer engagement software maker, which entered Gartner’s Magic Quadrant this year, launched two new products in February and June – a Hotline for mobile apps and a Freshsales rival to Salesforce..

See: Google-backed Freshdesk takes on Salesforce with a new tool

From Amazon to Walmart to Freshdesk

The appointment of Prasad, who has deep engineering as well as entrepreneurial background, is aimed at managing this rapid product and customer growth. Before Kosmix and WalmartLabs, he was the chief architect of comparison shopping site Junglee which got acquired by Amazon in the late nineties. He then founded Aventeon, an enterprise mobile product startup in Seattle.

“He brings with him an in-­depth understanding of startups, being a founder himself,” says Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshdesk. “In this phase of our growth, his experience in leading large engineering teams and scaling technology will be highly valuable.”

Girish Mathrubootham, CEO and founder of Freshdesk, at the Tech In Asia Bangalore 2016.

Freshdesk says it doubled its customer count to 80,000 this year. It is this rapid scaling up that excites STS Prasad. “Freshdesk has clarity of vision and sustained execution that is unique for a young company,” he says.

Prasad – or STS as he’s known in tech circles – is Freshdesk’s second infusion of top global talent in less than year. Last October it hired the LinkedIn India head Nishant Rao as COO.

Clearly a lot has changed since the time when a Yahoo designer baulked at shifting to Chennai. As a matter of fact, even that designer changed his mind and now works for Freshdesk in Chennai, as Girish recounted to me on stage at last month’s Tech in Asia Bangalore conference.

See: Secrets to scaling up globally from Freshdesk