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Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

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Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#181

Post by mantas »

usrbinbash wrote: post #129
mantas wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is EU does not want home-grown ecosystem. EU wants BigTech they can do business (as well as „business“) with. Big old businesses are very reliant on export to certain markets. E.g. German car industry in China. Thus there's a big push to not have protectionist policies due to fear of retaliation. But such approach does not help to build local ecosystems in newer niches. Could you imagine EU doing to TikTo…

> Could you imagine EU doing to TikTok what US did? Since they seem to have no qualms picking fights with big US tech when they run afoul of their regulations...yes. Yes I can absolutely imagine that. Plus, establishing a homegrown market is not "protectionist politics". It's allowing for, and enabling, competition, which, according to every proponent of capitalism, is a good thing (which is funny, because capitalism…

> Since they seem to have no qualms picking fights with big US tech when they run afoul of their regulations...yes. Yes I can absolutely imagine that.

Meh. It's just squeezing some cash.

> Plus, establishing a homegrown market is not "protectionist politics".

It's 100% protectionist politics once you start doing more interesting things :)

> It's allowing for, and enabling, competition, which, according to every proponent of capitalism

Ah yes. That's exactly what modern europe is known for :)

> What is China going to be (officially) angry about? That the EU takes their own money to fund startups and alternatives, in, and for, their own home market?

China doesn't need to be officially angry. They can simply retaliate by forcing EU-related companies out. Sort of like they already do, just more strictly. Which is funny that China has all sorts of protectionist policies, but what if West retaliates... All hell breaks loose.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#182

Post by 6510 »

aichi wrote: post #132
6510 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats great. The "I want to do everything on my phone" folk need to be told NO at some point. A somewhat cluttered but usable desktop interface cramped fully onto a tiny phone screen will have to much nested menu options to be able to discover things. I went into this dead end more often than I should have, wasted a lot of time until I finally started wondering what the hell I was thinking. The funniest was a long si…

But these are exactly in Africa, phone only.

Email without tags or folders works fine on a phone. I barely use it on desktop. You can always make multiple mail addresses.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#183

Post by 6510 »

vitalurk wrote: post #148
6510 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats great. The "I want to do everything on my phone" folk need to be told NO at some point. A somewhat cluttered but usable desktop interface cramped fully onto a tiny phone screen will have to much nested menu options to be able to discover things. I went into this dead end more often than I should have, wasted a lot of time until I finally started wondering what the hell I was thinking. The funniest was a long si…

"Don't you guys have laptops". Maybe it's about your customers and the devices they use!

Just don't bother making things if you cant get it to work properly.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#184

Post by umeshunni »

vram22 wrote: post #178
nsoonhui wrote: post #83

Zoho prices strategically. For example, it ensures that the price for the help desk product, ZohoDesk is the lowest in the market; across all tier it is priced at USD 1/month cheaper than the next cheapest competitor, FreshDesk.

Also, IIRC, the CEO of Freshworks (company behind FreshDesk) was heading product management at Zoho earlier.

You're right: https://www.linkedin.com/in/girish1/

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#185

Post by 1024core »

rathish_g wrote: post #32
1oooqooq wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bootstraped i think they got a big injection when yahoo bought them, tried to dogfood in lieu of exchange, failed and sold for pennies back to the founders

When did this happen? I just couldn't find any links. Is it Zoho or Zimbra?

I think they're confused. It was Zimbra.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#186

Post by ignoramous »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #99
max_ wrote: post #88

I am an African based in Uganda and I am currently working on my project https://labour.quest I wanted to start by using Google Workplace. But then switched to Zoho for the generous free tier. I am so glad I did. Zoho has so many tools that a project needs to run "built in". For example I was thinking of signing up for the services below but Zoho already had these built in. SendGrid - Zepto Mail MailChimp - Zoho Camp…

I'm sure you're aware, but you have to be careful with being very reliant on free-tier products. Once a magnitude of people are "locked in" then they'll start to do some of the pricing and licensing shenanigans where once common features or bundled products get hidden under a fee or broken up after an update. (Interesting project BTW, I'd just recommend having a screenshot or 2 of one of the resumes if you're explici…

> I'm sure you're aware, but you have to be careful with being very reliant on free-tier products

Depends where the org is in its economies of scale, operating leverage, cost efficiencies (vs volume), and earnings. Zoho is based in India, in business for decades with pretty much the same model, reaping millions in profits, and can very well afford to not bill its clients as if it was paying developers in London or San Francisco.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#187

Post by kkukshtel »

tiffanyh wrote: post #136

Zoho is hugely underrated. They have a massive suite of capabilities, so much so a SMB (most of the worlds businesses) could run their entire company off of Zoho. Because it isn't a Bay Area company, or making exciting products - makes them overlooked far too much. For those who use Zoho, they love it because it-just-works.

I built some backend CRM stuff at a previous job on Zoho and was consistently amazed at how great it was. Everything "just worked" and was surprisingly well thought out. It lacks some of the polish that can make it feels fully "complete" but my experience with it was generally very positive.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#188

Post by annoyingnoob »

nsoonhui wrote: post #83

Zoho prices strategically. For example, it ensures that the price for the help desk product, ZohoDesk is the lowest in the market; across all tier it is priced at USD 1/month cheaper than the next cheapest competitor, FreshDesk.

They just separated out Servers in Endpoint Central, where servers now require a different license. My use of the product will not change, the price of renewal goes up 12%. I'm paying more this year for the same thing. Strategic pricing indeed, lock'em in and crank'em up.

Also, Redhat and CentOS are 'servers' under this new licensing, but Ubuntu is not a server.

I've found Endpoint Central to be rather buggy, and not really improving over time, they just keep introducing new bugs.

Endpoint Central, now with arbitrary pricing.

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#189

Post by mft_ »

whalesalad wrote: post #168

Definitely disgruntled by the way Google Apps went from being free for the last decade of my life to costing ~$120/mo for myself and my family. I don't think I can leave Google at this point, but if I was strapped for cash I would choose a different platform. Otherwise, I would still go with Google just due to their dominance in this space and integration with other companies. Calendar invites, meet etc being the pri…

I’m torn between not prying, and wondering how you get a family to $120/m, when you can get a basic personal Google account (which comes with access to all of the usual apps) for free?

Re: Zoho is attracting the attention of African startup founders

#190

Post by Fogest »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #151
jiveturkey wrote: post #125

Clickbait headline for a zoho ad. It's not clear at all how much penetration they have in Africa. It's likely unmeasurable vs Google.

I was wondering if Zoho paid to have this article written. And then all these positive comments make me paranoid they’re paying for that too. Maybe I’m too much of a skeptic but companies definitely pay agencies to astroturf like this.

It's possible they are doing such a thing, however I also am sure there are many legitimate users in the comments. I personally have been using them on the free tier for over 10 years. I signed up soon after Microsoft was stopping allowing you to use your own email domain through Outlook at a free tier. Zoho allowed you to use your own domain name for free and even has support for things like IMAP. The current free tier is a bit more restrictive now with features like IMAP being removed, however they have never removed any features from my account. I personally find it hard not to be loyal to a company who will grandfather me in on a less restrictive free plan. I haven't paid them anything, they technically owe me nothing.

However, while I have not made use of their paid services (as I use it just for personal use), I have referred clients before to Zoho when I have been working on their websites.

I've also made use of their invoice software free of charge to generate a couple invoices and have been quite pleased with that as well.

Sometimes when companies are fair to their customers either via pricing or business practices, it results in people being much more willing to go out of their way to say good things about the company. It would be insane for me to be negative against a company that has provided me a good product for free for years upon years. There aren't even ads.

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