Vivek Bhaskaran was a computer science student in college who worked on an online survey project for a professor in the marketing department. After university, he built a new survey tool with a fellow software developer while they still held their day jobs. QuestionPro grew slowly and profitably with efficient search engine optimization and viral marketing, avoiding the need to raise money from outside investors.
QuestionPro grew steadily by expanding the product with more powerful features for larger companies. These larger deals required adding regional enterprise salespeople. They also expanded regionally with offices in the US, UK, Germany, Australia, and Latin America. Recently, they acquired several companies with survey products used by large global companies that added to their customer base.
Vivek talks openly about their key inflection points in their journeys of revenue growth, global expansion, recruiting leadership talent, developing systems and processes, and expanding their product portfolio. QuestionPro has 300 employees with $35 million in revenue. Vivek is enjoying the learning and professional challenges of being the CEO of a software company that is growing to over $100 million in revenues.
Best quote from Vivek:
I live my life with the same principle: to have fun while doing the work. If you stop having fun, it becomes all about the work and all about the target.Â
If you stop having fun, if you stop enjoying the ride, then it becomes a chore, then you get stressed, you get annoyed, and it’s a sh*t show after that.Â
So if you can make it fun, which means reducing the pressure on the target somehow. You could reduce the pressure on the target by, let’s say, 50%, and then use the other 50% of the energy to have fun. In my mind, at least, it’s a healthy balance between the target and the journey.
In this episode, Vivek explains:
- How they grew fast and profitably in the early years with successful search marketing with a freemium survey tool product and chat sales support
- How his role changed at important revenue inflection points at $1 million revenue with scrappy founders, then stalling at $4 million, growing to $10 million with an organized team, and now to over $30 million with a global organization with systems and processes
- How they have grown with regional expansion with autonomous sales offices and multiple products including several acquired products
- Why he doesn’t say they are a “US company” as they have fully remote employees around the world with no headquarters
- Why they charge an additional fee to big customers to develop new features that eventually enhance their core products
QuestionPro Software Company Facts
- Founded:Â 2005
- Description: QuestionPro leading provider of online survey and customer experience research software for companies and organizations around the world.
- Number of Employees:Â 300 employees with 160 employees in India, with employees in offices in the US, Germany, Dubai and Latin America
- Funding: Bootstrapped to start with profitable growth with no outside funding. $35 million revenue run rate currently.
- HQ Location:Â Fully remote global company with no headquarters office. Vivek lives in the San Francisco, California area.
