5 ms·

Beautiful story. The way you listed to the market, built the right product in the right moment - just perfect. One think caught my eye: $160 for your office sp

by guylhem 16y ago

Beautiful story. The way you listed to the market, built the right product in the right moment - just perfect. One think caught my eye: $160 for your office space?? From what I've seen on http://blog.freshdesk.com/freshdesk-gets-a-fresh-office http://blog.freshdesk.com/freshdesk-gets-a-fresh-office it looks very decent. Your burn rate is also quite good. How easy is it for a non indian to start a company in India?

orenmazor 16y ago
I took away the same thing. Thats a fantastic burn rate. especially compared to a [hardware] startup I worked at that had a burn rate that'll make your eyes water.
girishm 16y ago
Ok. One thing regarding the office space. The place we got was a 700 sq ft rectangle that looked like a run down warehouse. We spent approx 3k for the paint,flooring and cubicles. It is in an upcoming suburb. A similar space in a prime locality will cost at least 5x the price.
- karolist 16y ago
  Very inspirational story. May I ask what software was used to make the "Fresh Office" video? Looks polished.
  - girishm 16y ago
    Just the simple iPhoto slideshow on Mac and screenflow for screen capture
- statictype 16y ago
  Is this in Chennai? Whereabout in Chennai?
enjo 16y ago
I'm not sure you have to go all the way to India for that. Here in Denver we had Downtown office space (about 1200 sq. ft.) for $500/month on a sublet. That's about $0.41/ft as compared to $0.21/ft for freshdesk. Sure it's about double, but they're within shouting distance of each other. Our four person team had a burn rate of about $12k/month at that point... again, about double but still really manageable. Given our access to capital in Boulder, it was a really nice situation all around.
- guylhem 16y ago
  Coming from the EU to India might be easier than from the EU to Colorado. If the visa situation was different, maybe, but if the problem can be redesigned to use average coders as explained by the earlier comment, it might be a better idea to opt for India. The cheaper living costs + office space + salaries means a lesser burnt rate, and thus more time to succeed.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Another reason to prefer India is that the food is tastier and the women are more beautiful.
    - billpaetzke 16y ago
      India is a big country. Are you referring to a particular city or region?
    - enjo 16y ago
      You have obviously never been to Denver:)
yummyfajitas 16y ago
I've been helping someone start their business in India, so I can give you some info. Your company should be incorporated in the US. You get tax rebates (not available to Indian companies) if you pay for services in USD from a foreign account. Typically you'll pay a local company directly and they will pay your workers (something like a ghetto version of Ambrose Employer Group in the US). Labor is cheap, but often of low quality. Lying on resumes is rampant, and filtering the wheat from the chaff is very tough. Getting good people can be tough for a startup, most people will want to work for bigger company [1]. Pay can be considerably higher in bigger cities. Bombay is more expensive to live in than NYC, and pay can be comparable for great people (though the spread is much wider than NYC). If you need top talent, go to the Valley. If you need commodity talent, go to India. (I'm not saying top talent doesn't exist there, I'm just saying you probably won't find it.) Often you can get a package deal - office, servers, workers with a single payment. The SLA will usually have terms like "you don't have to pay workers while the servers are down." My friend exercised this clause several time - between power loss, workers tripping over wires, broken DSL (!!!) connection and the like, he has about one 9 of uptime. Just accept it, plan for outages (read: no MongoDB) and move on. Production servers live on linode/EC2/rackspace, not locally. You want to avoid a permanent presence - if you can't easily walk away you are at risk of being shaken down for bribes. "Sorry, but the electricity is down, and it will take 2 years to fix it, though maybe I could do a personal favor for you and push you further up the queue." Same thing if you need permits, want to incorporate locally, etc. Short version: living is cheaper (not as cheap as you think), commodity talent is cheap, but quality will often be lower. Look for bargains, and be aware that it isn't the valley or NYC. [1] This is true for both cultural and economic reasons. Short version: a) working for an unknown company can mess up your prospects in arranged marriage market, b) family might be disappointed, which is a big deal and c) risks are a LOT higher so stability is valued. On c), in India, you have a LONG way to fall. Utter destitution in the USA (i.e., bottom 5%) is roughly comparable to upper middle class status (top 95%) of India, in terms of PPP-adjusted income. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-the-have-nots/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...
- guylhem 16y ago
  If you want to hire only 1 or 2 persons, how long will $10k last you? (same question for $5k in case the costs are not linear) On avoiding permanent presence, do you mean not living in India, or not living in the office space?
elai 16y ago
How about BC Canada? It's west coast, and tech companies get a lot of corporate tax breaks, and canadian immigration isn't as horrible as US.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- spitfire 16y ago
  What tax breaks do we get in BC? I didn't know of any except for things like biotech, greentech, etc.
- visakhcr 16y ago
  Immigration is going to get tougher in Canada from April http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/tougher-rules-for-canada-work-visas-likely-next-month-t65848.0.html http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-boar...

by guylhem 16y ago

orenmazor 16y ago

I took away the same thing. Thats a fantastic burn rate. especially compared to a [hardware] startup I worked at that had a burn rate that'll make your eyes water.

girishm 16y ago

Ok. One thing regarding the office space. The place we got was a 700 sq ft rectangle that looked like a run down warehouse. We spent approx 3k for the paint,flooring and cubicles. It is in an upcoming suburb. A similar space in a prime locality will cost at least 5x the price.

karolist 16y ago
Very inspirational story. May I ask what software was used to make the "Fresh Office" video? Looks polished.
- girishm 16y ago
  Just the simple iPhoto slideshow on Mac and screenflow for screen capture
statictype 16y ago
Is this in Chennai? Whereabout in Chennai?

enjo 16y ago

I'm not sure you have to go all the way to India for that. Here in Denver we had Downtown office space (about 1200 sq. ft.) for $500/month on a sublet. That's about $0.41/ft as compared to $0.21/ft for freshdesk. Sure it's about double, but they're within shouting distance of each other. Our four person team had a burn rate of about $12k/month at that point... again, about double but still really manageable. Given our access to capital in Boulder, it was a really nice situation all around.

guylhem 16y ago
Coming from the EU to India might be easier than from the EU to Colorado. If the visa situation was different, maybe, but if the problem can be redesigned to use average coders as explained by the earlier comment, it might be a better idea to opt for India. The cheaper living costs + office space + salaries means a lesser burnt rate, and thus more time to succeed.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Another reason to prefer India is that the food is tastier and the women are more beautiful.
  - billpaetzke 16y ago
    India is a big country. Are you referring to a particular city or region?
  - enjo 16y ago
    You have obviously never been to Denver:)

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I've been helping someone start their business in India, so I can give you some info. Your company should be incorporated in the US. You get tax rebates (not available to Indian companies) if you pay for services in USD from a foreign account. Typically you'll pay a local company directly and they will pay your workers (something like a ghetto version of Ambrose Employer Group in the US). Labor is cheap, but often of low quality. Lying on resumes is rampant, and filtering the wheat from the chaff is very tough. Getting good people can be tough for a startup, most people will want to work for bigger company [1]. Pay can be considerably higher in bigger cities. Bombay is more expensive to live in than NYC, and pay can be comparable for great people (though the spread is much wider than NYC). If you need top talent, go to the Valley. If you need commodity talent, go to India. (I'm not saying top talent doesn't exist there, I'm just saying you probably won't find it.) Often you can get a package deal - office, servers, workers with a single payment. The SLA will usually have terms like "you don't have to pay workers while the servers are down." My friend exercised this clause several time - between power loss, workers tripping over wires, broken DSL (!!!) connection and the like, he has about one 9 of uptime. Just accept it, plan for outages (read: no MongoDB) and move on. Production servers live on linode/EC2/rackspace, not locally. You want to avoid a permanent presence - if you can't easily walk away you are at risk of being shaken down for bribes. "Sorry, but the electricity is down, and it will take 2 years to fix it, though maybe I could do a personal favor for you and push you further up the queue." Same thing if you need permits, want to incorporate locally, etc. Short version: living is cheaper (not as cheap as you think), commodity talent is cheap, but quality will often be lower. Look for bargains, and be aware that it isn't the valley or NYC. [1] This is true for both cultural and economic reasons. Short version: a) working for an unknown company can mess up your prospects in arranged marriage market, b) family might be disappointed, which is a big deal and c) risks are a LOT higher so stability is valued. On c), in India, you have a LONG way to fall. Utter destitution in the USA (i.e., bottom 5%) is roughly comparable to upper middle class status (top 95%) of India, in terms of PPP-adjusted income. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-the-have-nots/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...

guylhem 16y ago
If you want to hire only 1 or 2 persons, how long will $10k last you? (same question for $5k in case the costs are not linear) On avoiding permanent presence, do you mean not living in India, or not living in the office space?

elai 16y ago

How about BC Canada? It's west coast, and tech companies get a lot of corporate tax breaks, and canadian immigration isn't as horrible as US.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
spitfire 16y ago
What tax breaks do we get in BC? I didn't know of any except for things like biotech, greentech, etc.
visakhcr 16y ago
Immigration is going to get tougher in Canada from April http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/tougher-rules-for-canada-work-visas-likely-next-month-t65848.0.html http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-boar...