Our latest guest is the co-founder of Talkdesk, one of Portugal’s first unicorns. She is also a venture capitalist at Indico Capital Partners and was recognized in the Forbes “30 under 30” in 2016. Meet Cristina Fonseca, the Portuguese entrepreneur who is now looking to re-imagine customer experience in her latest startup Cleverly.ai.

In the latest episode of The Orbit Shift Podcast, we talk to Cristina about her journey building her previous startup, Talkdesk. What she looks for in a startup as a venture capitalist with Indico Capital Partners and about all things hiring, including how she sets up processes to hire recruits, collaborate with other department heads, give feedback, and fix recruiting errors without burning bridges.  

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Cristina Fonseca is an expert in Artificial Intelligence technologies. She is currently the co-founder and CEO of Cleverly.ai, an AI platform that makes customer service teams more efficient across multiple channels. Cristina is on the Singularity University Faculty as an expert in Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship. She is also an investor, Partner at Indico Capital, and tech entrepreneur. She co-founded Talkdesk, an early Portuguese unicorn that made Cristina recognized as “30 under 30” by Forbes in 2016.

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc., a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

Koray Bahar is one of the most prolific entrepreneurs to come out of the MENA region. A computer engineer by profession, Koray joined Foriba in 2001. He helped the company establish itself as a leading player in e-invoicing, scaling it from $2 million to $14 million in revenue, entering eight new countries, and a successful acquisition by global tax software provider Sovos. 

In the latest episode of the podcast, Koray talks to us about: 

🚀His entrepreneurial journey

🚀How to have a successful exit from a startup 

🚀His latest venture, fintech company Figopara 

🚀How to scale culture in an organization

🚀The right time to raise funds in a startup 

🚀What he looks for in startups as an angel investor

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Koray Bahar is the Co-Founder & CEO of Figopara, a leading Turkish FinTech company aiming to help companies solve working capital constraints. Figopara was founded in 2016. Its investors include Revo Capital, International Finance Corporation, and Endeavor Catalyst. Koray was previously the general director and partner of Foriba. He scaled the company from 35 to 220 employees, $2 million to $14 million in revenue, from 30 to 15,000 customers, and it entered the markets of 8 different countries. Koray is an active angel investor. He also creates content regarding entrepreneurship and technology on www.yollarda.tv. 

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc., a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian 

How do you create engaging content and gives your startup a great return on investment in an increasingly competitive marketplace? 

Today generating content that is engaging and has high visibility is an integral part of a brand's inbound marketing strategy. In this episode, Steph Smith, the head of Trends at The Hustle, a newsletter with over a million readers, breaks down essential content strategy for startups. She talks about how brands should set up their content strategy, how to differentiate in the market, find a niche, set up their SEO process, master distribution, set goals, and measure success. Whether you’re an independent blogger, startup, or a team within a larger organization this episode will help you plan and scale your content strategy. 

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Steph has been working remotely for over three years as a growth marketer, writer, and indie maker. She spent three years at Toptal (most recently leading their Publications team) and is now the Head of Trends at the Hustle (acquired by HubSpot). She is a self-taught developer that has built multiple projects, including some that have topped Product Hunt, leading to a nomination for Maker of the Year in 2018. She also has a personal blog that has been read by over half a million people, touching on topics including remote work, productivity, and tech. She is the author of Doing Content Right. 

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc., a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

The Three-Box solution posits that every project that your organization executes can be put into one of three boxes. Box one manages the present and focuses on the customers that you serve today. Box two selectively forgets the past and contains projects that do not fit into the company’s vision for the future. And Box three is about creating the future by taking into considerations innovations and technological disruptions. In this episode of The Orbit Shift Podcast, Manish Tangri unpacks the Three-Box Solution. He discusses how leaders can apply this solution to their startups and established businesses so that their companies are future-proofed and protected from disruptions. 

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Manish Tangri is the author of HBR Press' book, The Three Box Solution Playbook: Tools and Tactics for Creating Your Company's Strategy. Manish has spent more than fifteen years executing entrepreneurial innovation activities in Fortune 500 organizations such as Microsoft and Intel. These experiences, which include recognizing external trends and nonlinear shifts and amplifying them so that organizations can effectively create their future was critical in developing the playbook.

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc., a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

Max Rofagha is building the largest and most engaged finance community at Finimize, a UK-based startup media platform that envisions a world where you don’t need a financial advisor. Max talks to us about leveraging the power of community by driving up Net Promotor Scores (NPS), increasing retention, and enabling user-generated content. He also explains his philosophy of “hire slow, fire fast” and talks about how he organically created the world’s largest financial gathering through the Finimize newsletter.    

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Max is the founder of Finimize, the world’s largest and most engaged finance community. Before Finimize, Max co-founded an e-commerce startup with 200 employees (backed by Lakestar) and sold it in 2015. He also mentors at Techstars and Startup Bootcamp and was named one of Forbes "30 under 30" for 2016.

Follow Max on Twitter @wholeearthweb

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc., a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

We’ve had several venture capital investors on this podcast. But Loyal VC certainly stands out. 

The Toronto-based firm operates a global startup index fund with over 130 investments across more than 30 countries. It is designed to minimize systemic bias in the investment process, unlocking greater returns. 

Its diverse portfolio of founders, of whom currently over 30% are women CEOs and almost 30% are from emerging markets, includes 80% social impact entrepreneurs who leverage technology to address one or more of the United Nations sustainable development goals. 

In this episode, Kamal Hassan, the founding partner at Loyal VC talks to us about how they actively eliminate bias in investing.
Listen in.

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Kamal Hassan's passion is entrepreneurship. Now, he helps others succeed. Loyal VC is the culmination of the past 20 years of his career, combining Founder Institute deal flow, Incmind software to manage the portfolio, and years of experience in supporting entrepreneurs and living their life. 

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

Rajiv Srivatsa co-founded Urban Ladder, a top online furniture brand in 2012.  With over 5000 designs across 35 categories such as living, dining, bedroom, study, and decor, Urban Ladder was established as an online-first brand. The company went on to become one of the most loved brands in India and was sold to Reliance in November 2020. 
Srivatsa now leads global venture capital firm Antler in India. The firm has plans to invest in over 150 early-stage startups over four years. In this episode, Rajiv talks to us about product-market fit, early-stage fundraising, the professional growth of a founder, and more. 

You can follow Rajiv on Twitter. 
Reference to the minimum viable product meme was from Henrik Kniberg's blog.

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Rajiv Srivatsa has 18+ years of experience in building scalable products and companies across B2C commerce, B2C tech, mobile and supply chain. He Co-founded Urban Ladder and helped build it towards becoming the #1 omnichannel brand for furniture in India.  He currently leads the deployment and operations of global early-stage VC firm Antler in India.

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

Andrew Gazdecki’s entrepreneurial journey started right out of college when the serial bootstrapper founded Bizness Apps a low code DIY mobile app builder that enabled small businesses to create, edit and manage mobile apps online. Over eight years he led the startup from 0 to $10 million+ ARR right up to a successful acquisition. In this episode of The Orbit Shift Podcast Andrew talks to us about his latest venture MicroAcquire, a startup up acquisition marketplace. Andrew talks about how minimum your MVP needs to be, the advantages of bootstrapping, how he builds in public, and tips based on his experience for a successful exit of your startup.  

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Andrew Gazdecki is a 4x founder with 3x exits, former CRO, and founder of MicroAcquire. Gazdecki has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine, as well as prominent industry blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat.

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

How do you scale your startup from three to thirty to three hundred people without losing sight of your company’s culture, values, and mission? When do you bring in specialists, put in processes at your startup?

In this episode of The Orbit Shift Podcast HR leader and CHRO of Freshworks Suman Gopalan talks about how a company can scale its people function, how to set up an HR function from scratch and scale it as your company scales, how to avoid conflicts between new recruits and the old guard, and how to retain your company's culture and manage employees in a remote post-pandemic workplace. 

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Suman Gopalan is the Chief Human Resource Officer of Freshworks. She has more than two decades of experience in various human resource functions. She spent ten years in various HR roles including Executive Director HR at Dell. She was also the Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at The Nielsen Company. Suman has graduated from XLRI, Jamshedpur with an MBA in Human Resources Management.
 

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The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian  

Wen Johanna Flower joined Crowdstrike in late 2014, cybersecurity was a growing field with a large number of vendors supplying solutions to enterprises. Worldwide spending on information security was expected to grow 4.7% to $75 billion in 2015, according to Gartner. 
Dozens of companies with competing products were in the market. Through her six-year career at the company, Johanna successfully led Crowdstrike’s marketing organization to differentiate the product, launch outside the United States and cross over $700 million Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) all the way to a successful Initial Public Offering in 2019. 
In this episode, the marketing leader takes us through her journey at Crowdstrike and explains how to build a world-class marketing org that can take a company public.

Get $10,000 free credits to use Freshworks products (including the brand new Freshworks CRM packed with AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more) by joining the Freshworks for Startups program. Click here to check eligibility.

About the Guest

Johanna Flower has been leading global teams and growing companies for the past 20+ years.  Most recently, Johanna served as CrowdStrike’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) – leading all elements of global Marketing at CrowdStrike including directing the brand, corporate communications, go-to-market strategies, and demand generation from 2014 to 2020.  Johanna played a critical role in CrowdStrike’s initial public offering (IPO), largely hailed as one of the most successful cybersecurity IPOs in history. Prior to joining CrowdStrike, Johanna held the role of SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Websense, Inc. (now Forcepoint LLC). 

Sign up for regular updates from The Orbit Shift Podcast.

The Orbit Shift Podcast is powered by Freshworks Inc. a global SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, California. 

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. 

Host and Producer - Jayadevan PK

Assistant Producer - Shashwath J

Audio Engineer - Rajesh Subramanian