{"id":8578,"date":"2017-05-11T13:16:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T11:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/?p=8578"},"modified":"2023-08-10T12:58:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T10:58:27","slug":"arun-mani-freshdesk-europe-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/arun-mani-freshdesk-europe-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"Freshdesk’s Arun Mani on European SaaS expansion, diversity and self-reinvention"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cIf you treat Europe as one mega-region\u2026 you\u2019re bound to fail.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I had to check twice when I looked at Arun Mani’s career path:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Growing up in India<\/li>\n
  2. Designing chips at Intel<\/li>\n
  3. Studying for an MBA\u00a0at the renowned INSEAD business school<\/li>\n
  4. Advising C-level execs on strategy at\u00a0McKinsey<\/li>\n
  5. Leading global sales at AppNexus<\/li>\n
  6. Running Freshdesk’s European expansion<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Most people’s career exhibits some form of consistent theme. It took me a while to understand that for Arun, the one consistency\u00a0is\u00a0constant self-reinvention.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cFrom risk free safe choices, to what gives you happiness, there is a huge shift\u2026 you have to do everything the other way round.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \"ArunArun has spent the last few months building a satellite\u00a0Freshdesk<\/a> team from scratch in Berlin, Germany to run\u00a0the company’s efforts in Europe, as their customer base grows and moves up-market towards mid-level and Enterprise businesses.<\/p>\n

    Freshdesk today has over 900 employees globally and over 100,000 customers.<\/p>\n

    As you might expect, there’s a whole world of challenges involved in expanding a SaaS product to a new market, especially one so diverse as Europe.<\/p>\n\n

    In our discussion, we cover:<\/p>\n