As per Tracxn, there are 1100+ SaaS startups in Chennai as of Feb 2023. 

Chennai has rightfully gained the title of the SAAS capital of India, thanks to the expansion of companies such as Zoho and Freshworks. 

Although these two firms have recently surpassed the $500 million revenue milestone, making them the most prominent success stories in the realm of Indian-based SAAS companies, there are other companies contributing to Chennai's reputation in the market. Chargebee, CloudCherry, HappyFox, and FourKites are among the businesses that are creating a unique space in the industry.

In this episode, we have with us Srikrishnan Ganesan Founder, Rocketlane. Srikrishnan's SaaS journey began with Konotor, which got acquired by FreshWorks and later became Freshchat. He has experienced scaling from 0 to 100 and is now building Rocketlane, a customer onboarding platform that reduces time to value and eliminates hit-or-miss experiences.

During the episode, he talks about his inspiration behind building Rocketlane, Planning and doing GTM early on being a SaaS founder, setting up a base in Chennai, and much more.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights of the conversation

01:32 - Intro to Srikrishnan Ganesan, Rocketlane and Chennai’s SaaS ecosystem

02:36 - Why do SaaS founders prefer Chennai?

06:09 - Advantages of building prior-product building experience

09:50 - Choosing the domain for Rocketlane

13:12 - Rocketlane’s Pre-Launch setup

18:53 - What works in customer conversation’s Pre-Launch?

22:44 - Why do SaaS founders ignore GTM?

24:35 - Raising their 1st round

26:32 - Choosing to become a Category creator

29:08 - Investing in Brand-building upfront

30:39 - Funding announcement with a Rap video

34:15 - Learnings from his journey

37:54 - Their strategy for Demand-Gen

40:29 - His thoughts on Generative-AI

45:47 - Slowness demand for Rocketlane or similar companies serving SMBs

Send us a text