Zoho is termed as the “Indian answer” to the Microsoft suite. It is best known for its wide range of cloud-based business tools. It began in 1996 under the name of AdventNet, founded by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in Pleasanton, New Jersey. Initially it focused on network management software solutions catering to large technology clients like Cisco. However, after the dot-com crash, the company pivoted toward enterprise IT management and eventually began developing software for small and medium-sized businesses.
In 2005, Zoho (then AdventNet) released Zoho CRM and Zoho Writer, their first office suite applications. The firm officially rebranded as Zoho Corporation in 2009, reflecting its focus on SaaS-based business software, with its headquarters moved to Chennai, India.
Zoho reached its first major user milestone of one million users in August 2008, following the launch of its online suite comprising Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show.
At its current strength, Zoho serves 100 million users worldwide across 55+ business applications, making it the first bootstrapped SaaS company, meaning they never took any external funding, to achieve this milestone. Zoho till this date remains a privately owned and debt-free enterprise, and a very successful one at that. It has around 15k employees globally and operates in 150 countries. The company reported global revenues of approximately US$1.4 billion in 2024, with a year-on-year growth of 27%. Its flagship product, Zoho CRM, serves over 250,000 businesses globally and maintains an 8.4% share of the global CRM market.
Zoho has found a renewed push from the Indian government for adoption across all administrative offices of the Indian government to push out Microsoft and other foreign product suites, as well as for private use as a part of the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” push. Zoho’s newest product Arratai, is positioned as the best Indian alternative to the widely used WhatsApp.
| Zoho’s current user strength | 100+ million global users |
| Highest revenue | USD 1.5 Billion (2024) |
| Most used product | Zoho CRM |
| YoY growth rate | 27-40% overall |
The story of Sridhar Vembu
Sridhar Vembu belongs to a modest middle class family from Tamil Nadu. He completed his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT madras and later obtained a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Princeton university. He was the first in his family to attend college and showed exceptional academic aptitude.
After completing his PhD, Vembu worked as a systems engineer for Qualcomm in the US in 1994. Despite a promising career and a high-paying job, he felt he was missing something in life. He wanted to start something of his own. Hence came his calling to entrepreneurship. He wanted to take advantage of the emerging internet economy. He co-founded AdventNet with Tony Thomas in New Jersey, with a focus on developing networking software. Their first product, Web NMS, was designed to help businesses manage operations digitally. This product garnered significant attention, especially after outperforming major competitors like HP at a US tech fair. By 1998, AdventNet’s sales had reached six crore INR, and by 2000, they had secured their first major client, Cisco, which pushed their sales to 50 crore INR.
The pivot away from networking software suites came in the early 2000s after the dot-com crash, which had dramatically reduced AdventNet’s customer base, forcing Sridhar Vembu to rethink his business. He turned down offers to sell the company, and paid his employees from earlier profits. He redirected AdventNet towards developing cloud based enterprise tools, leveraging the SaaS model before it became mainstream. Zoho CRM was launched in 2005 as a result of this push. By 2008, it had gained 1 million users and in 2009, AdventNet had become Zoho corporation, and Zoho kept expanding its product suite with affordable pricing options for SMEs. While giants such as salesforce were stuck with only serving large scale clients, Zoho sweeped the SME software market beating foreign competition.
Sridhar Vembu’s greatest motivation stems from self-reliance, independence, and social responsibility. He has consistently rejected venture capital investment to maintain long-term autonomy, stating that “freedom to think and invent” matters more than scale. His rural upbringing shaped his belief that world-class technology can emerge from small towns, driving his passion to create opportunities for rural youth through Zoho Schools of Learning founded in 2004.
Vembu, through Zoho, championed the concept of “transnational localism”. Instead of having large centralised offices with thousands of employees in a tier 1-2 city. Zoho sets up rural offices worldwide to employ talent outside of major cities, subsequently helping employees cut travel and relocation costs. These offices will office a team of 150-300 employees as Vembu believes that the best software is built by small teams in informal environments. As a leader, he further emphasizes vertical integration, with in-house R&D, sustainability and focus on long-term growth rather than a numbers-metrics and cost cutting expansion approach. He is currently the co-founder and chief scientist of Zoho, he continues to focus on innovation especially AI integration and better rural entrepreneurship.
Zoho product portfolio overview
Zoho CRM remains the dominant product, with over half of Zoho’s total user base and the highest revenue generation within the suite. Together, these five products account for roughly 80% of Zoho’s total SaaS user population and nearly three-fourths of its annual recurring revenue.
| Top 5 Products | Estimated Users (Millions) | Estimated Revenue (USD Millions) | Market Focus |
| Zoho CRM | 55 | 750 | Sales & customer management |
| Zoho Books | 18 | 210 | Accounting & finance automation |
| Zoho Desk | 12 | 150 | Customer support & ticketing |
| Zoho Projects | 8 | 90 | Task and project management |
| Zoho Analytics | 7 | 80 | Business intelligence & reporting |
How Zoho beats its competition
1. Product led growth
Zoho invests heavily in product development, allocating around 60% of its revenue into R&D rather than advertising. The company believes a superior product markets itself organically through customer satisfaction and positive referrals. Through this strategy, Zoho has outpaced competitors like Salesforce and HubSpot in user loyalty
2. Value based pricing
The company adopts a cost-leadership approach, offering competitive prices for its cloud software. Since Zoho operates efficiently with minimal marketing overheads and develops all its technology in-house, it maintains very low customer acquisition costs. This pricing flexibility allows it to capture price-sensitive SMEs that seek scalable, full-suite digital solutions.
3. Unified integration
Zoho’s ecosystem of 55+ interconnected applications allows departments within small businesses. Everything from sales, marketing, finance, and HR to operate seamlessly on one unified platform.
4. Self reliance
Remaining private and bootstrapped is a core part of Zoho’s differentiation. The decision to avoid venture capital ensures long-term autonomy, permitting slower but stable growth driven by customer need rather than investor demand. As a result, Zoho aligns its priorities around product excellence and ethical business practices rather than quarterly profits.
5. Recruitment and training from the grassroots
Through the Zoho Schools of Learning, the company recruits high-potential students directly from rural India who lack formal degrees, training them in programming and mathematics. This unconventional HR approach lowers costs, secures loyalty, and nurtures a mission-driven workforce, insulating Zoho from the global tech talent crunch.
Company’s CSR and management excellent
“Building software is best done in small teams, in informal environments. Numbers and metrics-only-driven approaches destroy creativity and result in soulless products.” – Sridhar Vembu
Zoho’s HR philosophy centers on skill creation over credentials. Emphasizing on aptitude and attitude in applying candidates rather than degrees and certifications. Through the Zoho schools of learning, founded in 2004, the company trains students from rural and underprivileged backgrounds in coding, design, and communication without requiring formal college degrees. Nearly 15% of Zoho’s current workforce has emerged from these programs.
Zoho promotes hands-on apprenticeship-style learning rather than classroom theory. Trainees work directly on live projects, embodying the company’s belief that real competence is created through practical engagement. This approach forms part of Vembu’s broader philosophy of “building talent where it lives,”.
Zoho’s management model is guided by self-reliance and employee empowerment over stakeholderism, or profit maximising motives. It deliberately avoids external investors, ensuring freedom to make ethical and long-term decisions. Internally, the hierarchy is flat, with managerial emphasis on mentorship rather than supervision. Employees are encouraged to move between product teams to broaden understanding and innovation capacity. This fosters an ownership mindset instead of compliance-based work culture.
The company’s in-house RnD has resulted in them building their own data centers, user interfaces, systems design verticals and much more, resulting in a new form of Indian “knowledge capital”. Zoho’s founders refuse to outsource any of their core competencies and rather have everything developed in-house by their own employees.
Zoho also has a strong sustainability oriented model, integrating ESG governance as a part of their business strategy. For example –
- Zoho’s data centers and campuses are primarily powered by solar and wind, reducing approximately 7,200 tons of CO₂ annually
- Rainwater harvesting, sustainable procurement, e-waste recycling, and closed water systems are standard at Zoho offices
- The company designs low-energy data centers with surplus electricity contributions to surrounding communities
- In FY 2024–25, Zoho allocated over 50% of its ₹54 crore CSR budget to environmental sustainability programs such as reforestation and renewable energy adoption.
The story of Arratai
Arratai (meaning chat in Tamil), is the latest product launched by Zoho as a part of the Indian self-reliance push. Arratai’s idea is to replace whatsapp as the primary online communication medium for Indians. It was launched quietly during the pandemic. It surged to top of India’s app store download charts after high profile endorsements from the Indian Government, in regards to pushing indigenous technology in the Indian Digital Ecosystem.
Arattai is designed as a lightweight, ad-free alternative to WhatsApp, emphasizing accessibility for users in regions with low-end smartphones and slower internet speeds. The app allows text, audio, and video communication. One of the major USPs of Arattai is that it has no advertising, AI-driven or data tracking integration unlike whatsapp which is largely integrated with meta AI, offering a privacy and speed oriented experience for chatting.
As Arattai’s popularity climbed, so did scrutiny about its privacy. The controversy began when users noticed the absence of explicit confirmation that Arattai’s text messages were end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) , a standard that WhatsApp introduced globally years ago. While Zoho clarified that video and audio calls on Arattai are encrypted, text chat encryption is still being rolled out gradually.
Sridhar Vembu responded to privacy concerns on social media, assuring users that Zoho does not access customer data, emphasizing that “trust is more valuable than encryption”. This stance was not taken with a grain of salt by critics, who used the one-liner “trust me bro” as there was no concrete metric to prove that Zoho did not access customer data other than the words of its founder. Zoho’s CEO, Mani Vembu, later confirmed that WhatsApp-like E2EE for all text chats is a “top development priority,” with secret chats already partially offering encryption.
While this internet row was ongoing, within just three days daily downloads jumped from 3,000 to 350,000. However questions regarding whether Arattai’s adoption is organic or politically amplified remained afloat. Some netizens also voiced concerns about whether a government-backed platform might pose risks to data privacy and independence, particularly in the absence of transparent encryption policies.
To know more about Zoho, explore its official website along with their Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook pages to stay updated on their growth, innovations, and new ventures.
___________
Stay Inspired. Stay Informed. For more business failure stories and leadership insights, explore Inspirepreneur Magazine and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on global business, innovation, and leadership trends.
