Concluding The Masters Of SaaS Series With Chargebee’s Krish Subramanian | Learnings From Indian Tech Masterminds

India’s digital economy — propelled by the Covid-induced restrictions and the resultant shift of offline businesses to the online model — is growing at a fast clip. As more businesses take the digital route for growth and sustainability, the Indian SaaS market is also reaping the fruits of this tech advancement, with projections of reaching $50 Bn by 2030 from $3.5 Bn in 2020, a report by Bessemer Venture Partners says. 

Additionally, an EY-CII report states that not only will this market grow multifold by 2025, but it will also account for 7-10% of the global market from the current 2-4%.

A prominent name in the Indian SaaS market and a member of the coveted unicorn club, Chargebee is one of the key success stories that highlight India’s SaaS boom. It started operations in Chennai in 2010, setting up global headquarters in San San Francisco, and set up its EU headquarters in Amsterdam in 2019. 

Operationally speaking, Chargebee’s subscription management and recurring billing platform helps businesses comprehend, process and manage all revenue data, besides automating critical workflows. It boasts integration with more than 23 payment gateways and supports 25+ languages.

In February 2022, the SaaS startup raised $250 Mn in Series H, led by major investors such as Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital. The round lifted the SaaS unicorn’s valuation to $3.5 Bn in just nine months (June 2021-Feb 2022).

In the final episode of the Masters Of SaaS series hosted by Inc42, we had Chargebee’s cofounder and CEO Krish Subramanian decoding the product-market fit, go-to-market strategies and the challenges startups face on their way to a billion-dollar valuation. 

Watch Dhruvil Sanghvi, CEO of LogiNext, speak with Krish Subramanian, cofounder and CEO of Chargebee, decode the product-market fit, go-to-market strategies and the challenges startup faced on its way to a billion-dollar valuation. 

During his conversation with LogiNext CEO Dhruvil Sanghvi, Subramanian also spoke about the company’s decision to lay off 10% of its employees in spite of raising funds not long ago. 

“One of the things that naturally happens in most of the hypergrowth companies is that inefficiencies get scaled up along with efficiencies,” said Subramanian. 

According to him, in most companies, people are thrown at problems to find solutions ‘without thinking automation-first’, which may lead to unnecessary hiring and an increase in cost inefficiencies.

“I will give you a case in point. . .you give a budget to attack a problem, and the team ends up focussing on the problem and not the most efficient and sustainable way long term. And that means that you may actually throw people at certain problems, instead of actually thinking of automation first — and that comes back to bite you when you realise that these are all inefficiencies and that you cannot keep doubling the people in these areas for you to have a sustainable and long term growth,” he explained.

Although India’s SaaS economy has great potential and continues to grow exponentially, it is clear that the sector is not immune to market headwinds. While the ecosystem grapples with a harsh funding winter and a global economic slowdown, zeroing in on cost-efficient and sustainable growth remains the primary focus of these startups. 

Inc42 and LogiNext’s Masters Of SaaS series aim to highlight some of the most significant success stories emerging from the Indian ecosystem to help propel the country’s SaaS narrative to the global arena. Learn how SaaS giants like Freshworks and BrowserStack have achieved sustainable scale and are countering current challenges.

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