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Started from Tamil Nadu and sold his startup to an IT giant. 1. Born in Tamil Nadu to a father who served as a high-ranking military officer, Vinod Muthukrishnan began his career in the Merchant Navy at 18, following his graduation from BITS Pilani with a degree in Nautical Engineering. In 2005, He became a certified First Officer with Maersk Line. ✅ 2. Vinod was sailing to over 60 countries, but he wanted to do something on land. After a decade-long career, he joined the founding team at Market Simplified, a startup that introduced mobile trading to major brokerages. He rose to become the VP of strategy and partnerships, completely changing the game. 🙌 3. In nine years, Market Simplified had expanded beyond Tamil Nadu and had a global sales team in India, Germany, and the US. Vinod managed all of them while selling to major brokerages like TD Ameritrade and OptionsExpress. But Vinod found a gap. 👇🏻 4. He observed that companies often approached customer loyalty as a transactional exchange, relying on fleeting discounts rather than genuine engagement. Vinod believed that "discount does not buy loyalty and wanted to solve this problem. 🤔 5. In 2014, he started a platform to empower companies to meticulously manage the entire customer experience across their lifecycle, offering an omnichannel and real-time cherry solution over the cloud. Cloudcherry was born. 🚀 6. Cloudcherry had raised a 1 CR seed round, but the funds were not enough to build technology beyond three months. Vinod kept the team together and maintained a tight-knit atmosphere. He evolved the product to give customer delight scores and give real-time feedback on data. And light shone through. 👇🏻 7. It finally got its first client - Titan for customer analytics. In July 2015, it raised 6 CR from IDG Ventures India. Vinod continually enhanced the product to facilitate NPS ratings, enabling brands to go live within 30 minutes across all their global touchpoints. 🌎 8. As it worked with over 40 brands and 700 touchpoints, it raised 40 CR, led by Vertex and Cisco Investments in 2016. It had expanded to serve customers across the BFSI, F&B, and retail sectors, offering a 360-degree customer view that incorporated data from 17 distinct channels. 9. By 2017, it scaled to 100 global customers, with 60% of its revenue coming from Singapore, North America, and the Middle East. And something was brewing up. An existing investor sought to collaborate on creating joint customer contact centres. And the moment came on 11th October 2019. ⬇️ 10. Cisco completed the acquisition of Cloudcherry. The cherry on the cloud moment had finally happened for Vinod and his 65 employees. 💪 ➡️Today, Vinod Muthukrishnan is the VP and COO of Cisco's Webex Customer Experience. He has demonstrated a deep love for customers not only in India, but also around the World. 🙏 ——— For more such stories, get my book “STARTUPS OF BHARAT” on Amazon!