During this pandemic, everyone is in a cost-cutting process and counting on the best value for money that anyone can get out of their investments. FlexiCloud has been providing its customers the best-in-class Managed Cloud hosting at the best price available. Vinod Chacko, Founder and CEO of FlexiCloud also believe that due importance should be given when you select your hosting partner as it directly affects the speed and functioning of your website which has a direct impact on your business. “I would add the point that after the outbreak of Covid-19, all business has gone digital, hence the potential of our industry expanding would be beneficial to us,” he says.
In the given below excerpts of the interview, let us figure out what more he has to say about the industry and its dynamics with the FlexiCloud:
Why did you choose Entrepreneurship over a regular 9-5 job?
I am a person who always follows my heart and does what is just for me. The organizations that I had worked for perceived me as an odd one as they were not happy with my working patterns. In the corporate world sitting late and working on weekends made the managers happy while working efficiently and finishing the work on time does not count.
I did keep my professional and personal life completely in separate boxes and when it started to take my personal life too, I decided that I needed to find my own space. Besides, the recession of 2008 was the turning point in my life as one of my colleagues got fired and I felt the threat of losing my job anytime. In the meantime, I did some freelance projects just as a hobby which made me realize that there was a big door of opportunity for self-work.
Gradually it led to more and more projects and people were quite happy with my work. Life became exciting as I could work on my terms and not take orders and the aftermaths of bossy environments. Finally, I started weaving dreams of my venture which came into reality within a few months. FlexiCloud was the name I chose for my company. Today my brainchild has evolved to the level I breathe, eat and sleep ‘FlexiCloud’.
Though I believed when I would be working for my venture, I can choose the time and would be less than conventional office hours. On the contrary, I work more than 14 hours a day for FlexiCloud, as most of the activities will be concerning FlexiCloud either strategizing new horizons for the company or solving clients’ issues. In short, I think I am an entrepreneur not by choice, but by destiny.
Tell us more about your company/startup/organization.
FlexiCloud, my venture was an idea that was conceived by me over a considerable period. It all began once I started freelancing as I had to quit my job for some time. During this period, I happen to work with a lot of web hosting providers which gave me a big revelation that there is a huge gap in the industry where hosting providers giving proper customer support at a fair price. In addition to this, it was a rare scenario to figure out a transparent pricing platform which finally made me think of launching a hosting company that is worthwhile for individuals, startups, businesses, and enterprises.
With the knowledge and expertise that I gained over time; I was able to create a hosting venture which none of my counterparts were able to provide. Initially, FlexiCloud was just about shared hosting, but later we pivoted to managed cloud hosting where we leverage the existing public cloud infrastructure to host our client applications.
We are now partnered with many Cloud providers and can deploy servers and host applications in about 25 locations around the globe which provides flexibility for the customers to choose the location where they want to host their application.
Today FlexiCloud offers Managed Cloud Hosting to more than 1000+ clients and handles about 100000 websites all across the globe. We also eliminate the hassles of server management from the clients’ shoulders and provide them peace of mind along with 99.99 % uptime and giving assurance that their sites will not be slow or be down.
What challenges have you faced as an entrepreneur? How did you overcome them to establish yourself and the company?
Reaching the milestone of getting the first 100 clients was the biggest challenge I faced. I still remember those moments where I patiently waited to add each one of them to my clientele. The enthusiasm that I had during that period when I got paid each time, still gives me goosebumps. The platforms from where I got my initial clients were communities like Quora, FB, LinkedIn groups, and Reddit. They started giving me more clients and the word of mouth propagated from my clients built my reputation which increased the number of customers. Eventually, social media platforms did the rest of the job and I never had to regret the path I chose over a mundane 9-5 job.
How do you lead your company and help it sustain itself in a competitive environment?
I do not believe in micro-managing my employees. They are constantly motivated and encouraged for self-learning with proper guidance so that they could solve their problems themselves. Our office culture is quite comforting, and we work as a team. In addition to this, I have complete support from my partners Anooja Bashir (CMO of FlexiCloud) and Naman Modi (CTO, FlexiCloud) to handle the marketing and tech support, respectively. Together the management and our employees create a strong organizational system that evolves and grows every day with our hard work and dedication.
To sustain in the competitive environment, I always ensure that we use cutting-edge technology. Our research and development team continuously monitors the technology developments, and we find ways to implement them in our company and propagate the benefits to the end customer too. Apart from that when a customer has a problem, we have a problem, and we work hard towards fixing it so that the customer can do their business with ease. We do that round the clock every day!
What is that one aspect of emotion that drives you at work or keeps you motivated?
As I mentioned previously, when one of our clients has a problem with their application hosted with us, we take it as our problem and go to any extent to fix it or help them fix the issue. That is what keeps us going. We always want to be on top of technology and work on ways to bring the benefits of the cloud and innovations on the scenario to our clients. We are a Managed Cloud Hosting provider that keeps its promise of getting the websites of our clients faster and better bringing the best for their business. We consider security paramount in online business. FlexiCloud provides Free SSL certificates to everyone that is hosted with us to start with and provides multiple layers of security to ensure that they are safe from online threats. The happy faces of our clients and the trust they put in us with their website and data, not only make us proud but also feel responsible for what we do.
Social Media is an inseparable part of the daily life of youth. Your thoughts about it and how do you leverage its power for the company?
Though I am not a happening person in social media, But I do believe that social media platforms can do wonders especially in expanding one’s network. I know it because it was from where I got my initial customers. All our marketing activities are handled by Ourea which does a great extent of job in that aspect. We are also planning to launch digital marketing campaigns for FlexiCloud so that more people are aware of our services. Besides, I like writing blogs to create awareness and contribute articles to spread more knowledge on hosting. As a professional, I believe a strong network is an aid for business growth in today’s world where social media channels connect people to get mutually benefited.
What are your future endeavors/objectives and where do you see yourself in near future?
FlexiCloud is a company where we take pride in providing ultimate client satisfaction, without hesitating to go the extra mile to achieve it. Keeping this as our mission, we aim to make ourselves grow to such an extent where we become a key player in Managed Cloud Hosting which is a multi-billion-dollar industry.
We are looking forward to expanding our present business to a wider scale in the USA and UK and European markets by end of this year along with setting a market in GCC too.
FlexiCloud presently manages WordPress, Magento, Laravel, Codeigniter, and Node js and aims to add support for more applications shortly where we become the most promising people in our verticals.
