James Winebrenner: The second thing is not going at it alone. All of these companies that we want to do business with can’t evaluate tens of thousands of vendors. The space changes rapidly. Much more so in security. Some of these segments are so small when they start.
>>>We love pioneering entrepreneurs. Sylvana is working on upgrading the healthcare system in Bangladesh. Wonderful, inspiring story!
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with some background about your own journey. How did you get going with Praava Health?
>>>According to a recent report, the global complaint management software market is projected to grow 6% to reach $2.85 billion by 2028, from $1.8 billion in 2021. Zendesk (NYSE: ZEN) continues to deliver strong growth but is also looking at possible exit options.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Healthcare and manufacturing are two big segments where you are doing a lot of work.
James Winebrenner: Yes, we are starting to see acknowledgment of this need in traditional enterprise space. I met with a large investment bank in New York last week that has done micro-segmentation initiatives in their data centers, but they’re now moving back out into their campuses and looking at user segmentation and device segmentation in those environments. These are networks where we think about iPads and laptops, but we see everything from Peloton to process controllers. It’s becoming more of a challenge.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Cedric’s story is a textbook case study of the kind of entrepreneur we want to see emerge and grow in every corner of the world: a solo entrepreneur who is a developer and a product guy capable of getting to validation while holding onto a day job. When we spoke in 2019, FormAssembly Founder and CEO Cedric Savarese had almost 50 employees spread around the world, and while it maintained a small office of fewer than 10 people in Indiana, the bulk of the company had scaled as a virtual workforce. Excellent model, and I encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to read this carefully.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Cedric Savarese: I was born in France and expatriated to the US. I grew up in a small town not so far from Paris.
Chennai, India and San Mateo-based Freshworks (Nasdaq: FRSH) continues to grow rapidly as it expands its CRM offerings. The company is focusing on product innovation and recently added several new bot capabilities to drive growth.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Is telecom the largest category in which you’re doing chat commerce?
Pieter de Villiers: Telecom is the largest category where we see high-volume adoption of chat commerce. However, we believe that financial services will eclipse that very soon.
Sramana Mitra: What kind of financial services?
>>>Sramana Mitra: Your primary insight is that you had the technical background, but you spent time building up sales and business model experience before you took the leap into entrepreneurship.
James Winebrenner: Yes.
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