Working at Google Was Like A Crash Course in Building and Growing A Company

In an exclusive interview with Sakshipost Erad Fridman, CEO and Co-founder of Fluxon, tells Reshmi AR how he created one of the top product development companies

How did the idea of giving up a stable job with a reputed company occur to you?

I’ve always been interested in starting a company. Early on in my career, I didn’t feel like I had the experience to start something on my own – there was still so much to learn. After I finished my MBA, I joined Google. Back then, Google was in a period of phenomenal growth, and working there was like a crash course in building and growing a company. I had to learn a lot, fast, and took full advantage of the opportunity to grow as the company did. Along with the new skills I picked up, I gained a network of talented friends, including some of Fluxon’s founding members.

Do you think taking the entrepreneurial plunge was the best thing that happened to your career...why?

We founded Fluxon in 2017 and this journey has been one of the highlights of my career so far. Through Fluxon, we have an opportunity to truly impact people’s lives – both for our customers and our team. We have helped team members buy their first homes, overcome personal challenges and work alongside some of their heroes in the tech industry. We have helped our customers achieve their milestones, and their products become used and loved by millions of users around the world. These are some of the moments I’m most proud of.

Tell us about the real-time Q&A app Dory and its utility in virtual events

In the early days of Fluxon, we were a small team and could easily keep each other up-to-date and share inputs on each other’s progress. As our company grew and expanded across countries, cultures and time zones, we needed a better way to manage team-wide meetings and encourage participation from everyone. So we built Dory.

Dory gave team members a place to ask questions, either named or anonymously, and we would answer each of them in our company-wide meetings. This way, we maintained an open culture and could learn which topics people cared most about. It quickly proved to be a really useful tool for more engaging and productive meetings. We decided to make it available to other companies and added new features to improve the experience. Today Dory provides real-time Q&A, live audience interactive and meeting notes, and is used by companies such as Amazon, Toyota and Microsoft.

What made you ex-googlers join hands?

We started Fluxon because we wanted to work with our friends, who were all very talented in their fields. Soon, companies began to reach out to us with ideas for products they needed built. We took on our first clients, and hired our first team members. We focused on making every project as successful as possible. It quickly became clear that there was a huge demand for our passion and expertise in software development. Today, we’re a global company with teams in twelve countries. Our business has grown organically through word-of-mouth recognition from founders and VCs, who know us as one of the top product development companies.

Why did you venture into the Indian market?

We started operations in India when we hired our founding engineer, who is based in Hyderabad. As we grew, we were impressed by the strong technical talent In India and continued to expand our team there.

What are your growth plans for the Indian market and what kind of opportunities do you see? What makes tech talent in India the best in the world?

Over the next few years, we hope to add 1,000 people to our team and India is one of our key markets for hiring. The combination of great schools and growing startup culture mean there’s no shortage of talent. We recently opened an office in Hyderabad and will be adding another in Bengaluru later this year.

Elaborate on your hiring plans and HR Operations to further boost the market penetration strategy

We’re heavily investing in creating the best possible workplace. Along with our existing competitive benefits, which include healthcare, gym coverage and tuition reimbursement, we recently launched a profit share program to give all our team members a share of our profits as we grow. This is just one of the ways we’re creating an inclusive and positive environment for our team members, and I’m excited for what is to come.

What are your hiring plans for the India team? Any specific skill set you are looking at?

We’re primarily hiring technical folks across Engineering, Product and Design. We are looking to hire people that are the very best at what they do, and have the growth mindset needed to launch products across domains.

Why should talent join you, there are already bigger and better paymasters in the Indian market?

People come to Fluxon to work on exciting projects for companies all over the world. We build and launch software products for some of the fastest-growing startups and enterprise companies, including Google, Stripe and Zapier. The work is varied and interesting, and allows people to flex into different areas so they are continually learning. We give people the chance to become the founding tech teams of the next generation of high-growth startups, without putting their careers at risk.

In addition to offering highly competitive salaries and benefits, another way we attract and grow talent is through our existing team. We’re fortunate to be supported by a team of highly-talented individuals, who are experts in their fields, and collaborate and support one another so everyone can grow. We work on the cutting-edge of technology, with modern stacks, effective processes and a highly transparent and open environment.

Do you see any changes in the business in the post-Covid scenario?
We are fortunate that the pandemic did not affect our operations. From the beginning, Fluxon has been a remote company so we didn’t need to make any significant changes to our processes or model. The product development sector continued to accelerate and we were able to grow as a company.

What sets Fluxon apart from its competitors?

We don’t view other product development companies as competitors. For most of our clients, the alternative to working with us is working with their in-house team to build their products. We offer them a ready-to-go team of experts to accelerate their development.

Most of our clients come to us through referrals from founders or VCs who know us as one of the top product development companies. The quality of our work, along with our transparent and open approach, gives our clients the confidence of knowing their product is in great hands.