MarTech Interview with Daniel Jebaraj, Chief Executive Officer of Syncfusion

Can you tell us about your background and your role as CEO at Syncfusion?
I received my MS in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University after graduating with a BE in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering in Guindy, Chennai, India. I began my career as a software product manager, working on the industry-leading Objective Grid at Stingray Software. I then managed the development and strategic planning of the Objective Studio collection of MFC extensions at Rogue Wave Software.

In 2001, I co-founded Syncfusion, Inc. to produce and support enterprise-class Microsoft .NET software components. We started with eight employees and one Windows Forms grid component. Now we have offices in three countries – (a headquarters here in the US, two in India, and one in Kenya), over 1,800 components on a dozen platforms, and a line of ready-to-deploy enterprise software products called Bold BI, Bold Reports, BoldDesk, and BoldSign. As Syncfusion’s CEO, I lead the sales, marketing, and product development teams across four offices. I work with the board of directors on the best path to success.

Credentials are often emphasized in the hiring process, but you have expressed the importance of potential. Could you share some examples of how you’ve identified and developed potential in employees that have led to remarkable outcomes?/#5 Your approach to recruiting and hiring goes beyond conventional norms. How do you identify promising candidates with limited experience or those without traditional degrees, and what qualities do you look for during the hiring process?/#7 In a world that often prioritizes credentials, you’ve mentioned that credentialism can be a barrier. Could you elaborate on how this can limit both individuals and businesses in the tech industry?
Human potential is much more important than credentials. I wholeheartedly believe that credentials can actually be a limiting factor. A great employee doesn’t need development or even tech-specific experience. Some of my most dedicated, passionate, and talented employees don’t have college degrees or extensive career histories. Some have never even owned a personal computer.

If someone has communication skills, basic math and writing skills, and aptitude, we can build on that. Take business intelligence, for example. Anyone who can work with a spreadsheet and understands basic functions has the potential to be highly successful. That’s all we need to teach BI to take it from there. I feel that the same idea applies to nearly all business functions.

Several years ago, I volunteered with an organization that taught basic computer skills to high school graduates in Kisumu, Kenya. These are intelligent kids with a sincere willingness to learn but lack access to higher learning. Kisumu has a great university system, but it’s expensive, so many high school graduates with good grades can’t go. I realized that with the good building blocks of education that these young people had, we could very quickly build on their skills. So, we started to bring them on as employees. We started our office in Kenya in September 2020 with four employees. Today, we have nearly 250 employees who support all business efforts – developing, technical writing, our Bold products, sales, accounts payable, and legal. It’s been incredibly successful by any business standards.

There is so much hopelessness when you don’t have a job or opportunities. You walk taller when you realize you have a future ahead of you. Once you get a chance, you think, “Something is working for me this time. I have hope.” And then you try as hard as possible to make the most of your opportunity.

A wise person recently described their motto as “Hard work with sincerity.” If someone is willing to learn and driven to work hard, that’s all you need for successful hiring.

Retaining top talent is crucial for the long-term success of any organization. How do you create an environment that encourages employees to stay and grow with Syncfusion?/ #4 Syncfusion has a reputation for investing in its employees. What are some unique ways in which you invest in your team to enhance their skills, job satisfaction, and overall well-being?
We really believe in up- and re-skilling. For example, in our Kenyan office, we’ve had several people transition from sales roles to test automation, which is a DevOps role. The issues weren’t in the individuals themselves; a career in sales just wasn’t a good fit. They are, however, very successful in test automation. Many companies would have seen these people falter, perhaps not perform well for a few quarters, and let them go. And that would have been a mistake. These are incredibly valuable employees.

We’ve also found that hiring young, less experienced employees improves retention rates. We invest in training these young people, helping them to build skills and [experience]. We don’t focus on mistakes, and we celebrate successes. That reinforces the idea that it’s okay to learn and try new things, which encourages personal growth.

Rather than focusing our efforts on attracting “top talent” from outside our organization, we believe it essential to recognize and reward talent inside our organization. We promote from within, showing our employees that if they work hard, they have a successful future. Nearly all of our management team is comprised of employees who have worked their way up the ladder. It’s one of the reasons why our employees have stayed with us for a long time.

The free Succinctly series and community licenses are valuable resources for individual developers and small business owners. What drove Syncfusion’s decision to support these segments, and what impact have you observed from providing these resources?
We support students, individual developers, startups, and small businesses because we firmly believe that everyone should be given an equal opportunity to learn new technologies. In other words, we believe in the democratization of technology. No one should be restricted by a lack of financial or educational resources. As we say on the site, Syncfusion is a 100% bootstrapped, growing company that builds help desk software for teams like ours. That makes us stand out among our competitors.

We also believe that small businesses and entrepreneurs should have access to the modern tools they need to grow and be competitive. So, Syncfusion provides free community licenses on all of our products for start-ups and individuals who meet certain qualifications—and they are full-featured, fully-supported licenses, which isn’t always the case for service providers. They provide a free entry-level product, but the features are curtailed, or the license isn’t supported and serviced. That doesn’t benefit anyone.

Our Succinctly free eBook series reaches 1.7M readers worldwide and has over 3.4M downloads. It was created in 2012 to fill the vacuum in developer education that exists between scouring the web for information and studying 500-page reference manuals. The robust series is written based on the idea that developers, given their knowledge and experience, can quickly familiarize themselves with new technologies with concise guides that are only about 100 pages. The Books are succinct because it’s often tough to find digestible “how-to” resources.

A carefully chosen expert writes each and focuses on briefly introducing trending technologies, giving the technical information someone needs to establish a foundation and become familiar with the latest technology on the market. They span topics like cross-platform mobile development, machine learning, and even soft skills like public speaking and remote working. In 2017, we started holding the Succinctly Readers Awards to recognize our authors’ hard work in these books. It’s an invaluable resource that we are incredibly proud to provide to our community. I’m also very grateful for our authors’ generous contributions of time and knowledge. In fact, our authors report that they learn themselves as they’re writing!

Growing a business without external funding is a challenging endeavor. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs and startups on navigating this path and achieving sustainable growth through bootstrapping?
We grew this business with good old-fashioned bootstrapping – without any external funding since inception. Everything has been entirely funded by our own sales.

It’s tempting to seek funding in order to grow as quickly as possible. In the tech industry, most startups will source capital from investors, but that often comes at the cost of autonomy. You can control your company’s future if you scale within your means. Bootstrapping takes discipline, but you can create longevity by releasing new features slowly, with intention, and without fanfare. That’s the model we’ve followed. We started with just one framework, and I still remember our first sale – just one or two licenses. Now, we have over 1,800 components!

Further, today’s market is really sensitive to what users want. People do a lot of research to find the perfect product that meets their needs. If you don’t have a way to meet that need, it’s very hard to be successful. If you’re bootstrapped, you really don’t have an option – you have to make the perfect product that meets the market needs. You have to listen to your customers. Focus on building a quality product that adds value. Work to keep costs down. Do we need individuals with specific credentials or a six-figure executive in the corner office? Ensure your roles are clearly defined from the beginning. Also, we’ve always focused on adoption levels over the cost of the sale because it’s getting the trust and loyalty of the customer that’s most important. The sales will follow.

I understand that there are some instances where you need that capital. But even then, I encourage you to examine your assumptions carefully before you reach a conclusion.

Finally, as a leader, what is your vision for the future of Syncfusion and its role in shaping the technology landscape?
We have great days ahead. We’re always listening to our customers, so we look forward to adding more features and controls to our products to support their needs. The individual developer is an integral part of the technology landscape; often, the game-changers are the people working out of their homes on something revolutionary. We hope to expand our operations in Kenya, Chennai, and other parts of the world, especially in areas that may be considered under-resourced since we’ve seen firsthand the impact that technology can have – both from an employment perspective and a tech democratization perspective.

We look forward to continuing to listen to our customers and expanding into all business areas that they rely on.