Introducing Anand Subbaraj, Co-Founder and CEO of Zuper
Sara:
I'm Sara Lindquist from Fuse. We're an early-stage venture firm based right here in the Pacific Northwest, and just like the founders in our portfolio, we are just getting started. We believe that founders deserve more: more urgency, more community, more expertise, more reliability - more of everything. And we aim to deliver. Join me as I introduce each of our portfolio companies in the Fuse family to date.
Today you'll hear from Anand Subbaraj, Co-founder and CEO of Zuper. Join us as we discuss how the business has been growing, what it means to be truly customer obsessed, and how Zuper is "uberizing" field service operations.
Let's get started!
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Sara:
Welcome, Anand! It is so great to be with you, as always.
Anand:
Thanks so much, Sara. I'm looking forward.
Sara:
Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time and I'm excited for you to share a bit about the Zuper story. So to kick things off, it'd be great if you could share the quick company overview and describe how you're serving customers today.
Anand:
Zuper is an intelligent field service management and customer engagement platform, and we enable organizations to offer what we call an on-demand experience to their customers by optimizing the utilization of a distributed field workforce. We help service organizations around the globe to meet the demands of the modern customers by "uberizing" their customer experience. And Zuper is used by thousands of users globally, across small, midsize, and large organizations. Ikea is our flagship customer, who leveraged Zuper in various parts of the world to manage the in house installation and assembly workforce and offer a modern service experience to their customers. Organizations using Zuper save at least twenty hours per week per user and improve customer satisfaction by over fifty percent.
Sara:
Love it. And Anand, you've had a really impressive career, including a significant tenure at Microsoft. Walk us back in time a little bit, when was that initial light bulb moment when you knew you needed to build Zuper?
Anand:
The idea of Zuper germinated from a terrible customer experience that I encountered while getting my refrigerator serviced from one of the largest global appliance brands. It required me to make at least ten contacts, ten calls to their customer support and several service visits from the technicians to get my issue addressed. In this world of uberization and on-demand experiences, my experience dealing with the service was painful and archaic. I realized that there is an opportunity to solve a real problem and make a difference, and that's how Zuper was created.
Sara:
Well, it's certainly a pain point we all experience, whether it's getting a text from the company about getting an eight-hour service window where they might show up, it is a real pain. So, thank you from all of us for building what you're building! You've assembled an awesome team - and I would just love to hear you describe why you believe your team is the team to build this.
Anand:
We have so far built an amazing team and a great culture. We are a product-driven company and the most important aspect is the customer obsession. Our team has a deep connection with the customer and all the decisions, tradeoffs, are based on a customer-first approach. We have the right technology and the industry expertise, and we drive growth by putting product at the center of the customer experience. And that's how we are trying to create a difference and address the problem at hand.
Sara:
Absolutely. And this kind of ties into the question I just asked you, but being the leader of your company - what is one word... Maybe it's not even one word, but how would you sum up the culture at Zuper?
Anand:
The primary thing at Zuper is that customer obsession. The empathy for the customer, having that deep connection with the customer, and collectively, we are trying to build that culture where every decision, every action, every trade off in the company comes from a customer-first approach. And the second thing which is most important is to remove the fear of failure, which is one of the most important things that I have learned as an entrepreneur, as a founder. That if you're not able to deal with that failure, if you're not able to embrace it, it sometimes creates a lot of friction, a lot of issues. So these are the most important elements of our culture that we are trying to cultivate in the organization.
Sara:
And Anand, what's so amazing is that culture is something that you create, but it's most effectively lived out when the leader lives it out. And that is certainly something that you model and continue to model, whether it's hopping on a plane same-day when one of your teammates has a COVID scare and can't make it to a customer implementation meeting, and more. You have shown that customer obsession at every turn, so it makes sense. Your team is lucky and has a rock solid culture. So appreciate you sharing that!
Anand:
Thank you.
Sara:
The next question I have for you is actually about the startup journey at large. So being the leader of a company is hard work and rewarding, but I imagine the journey has not been free of road bumps. So Anand, what's kept you going, perhaps even in moments where others might have thrown in the towel?
Anand:
Yeah, this is a very interesting question. I have not thought about quitting any time up to now, thankfully, "touch wood" (*knocks on wood*).
Sara:
Good!
Anand:
The biggest challenge of a startup is to ensure we are continuously creating value for all our stakeholders, be it our customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and the founding team. And the definition of that value is different for each one of these stakeholders, but it is an ongoing, evolving journey. Like you said, there are many situations causing extreme anxiety, like customer acquisition, building that product market fit.
Sara:
Right.
Anand:
Fundraising, creating the team, and uncertainties associated with each one of these situations. And it requires immense dedication, hard work, perseverance, motivation to stay focused, and continue driving that value creation. Like I said before, the most important thing that we have observed is to get to the right mindset of handling failures, removing that fear, embracing, learning, and adapting, and it is going to be an extremely rewarding experience.
Sara:
Well, that's spot on. If you can remove that fear of failure, it makes your "go-to-work factor," when you get up in the morning all that much more exciting. Okay, so in closing here, one final question for you: What right now do you need more of? How can any of the listeners tuning in right now help or get involved?
Anand:
As an early-stage startup with strong product market fit and growth trajectory, we need help in two areas. Number one, hiring. It's very important for us at this stage, and we are hiring for strategic roles across marketing, sales, partnerships, product, and other areas, and any introductions would be great. And secondly, customer referrals. If you are aware of any customers who would benefit from our product, please refer them to Zuper.
Sara:
Great. And what's the best way for people to get in touch?
Anand:
Get to our website, it's https://Zuper.co.
Sara:
Perfect. Anand, thank you so much. Thank you for being here, sharing your story, and thank you for building your product. You're going to make all of our lives a whole heck of a lot better, so thank you!
Anand:
Thank you so much. This is an amazing experience talking and sharing all that experience with you.
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Sara:
Be sure to check out job postings directly on Zuper's website, which you will find under the 'About' tab. Otherwise, feel free to check out these job postings right here on the Fuse website. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you on the next one.