Playbook Podcast: Vinod Muthukrishnan on building Cloudcherry, and the journey through the startup valley of death

In August this year, Cisco acquired Bangalore-based customer analytics startup, Cloudcherry, for over $50 million. While the deal did make the headlines, what’s been missing since then is the quiet and at times painfully slow journey Cloudcherry went through before getting acquired. It’s also a story of not just the founder’s grit and persistence, but most importantly the employees of Cloudcherry who stayed and fought the quiet battles.

For Vinod Muthukrishnan, it’s been a journey that also changed him as a person, making him realise what it really takes to build an organisational culture that lasts.

“When we started, we ran out of money during the first four months itself. And till our first anniversary, some friend would come visiting and I will sell them the vision. Each of them, in fact, six of them, kept investing monies funding our payroll and vendor payments all through the first year. Today, all of them have made good returns,” he tells me.

Tune in.