Expert Speaks: In Conversation with Ramesh Subramaniam, Founder of FlyCart

Last updated - April 3, 2020

Today at ‘Expert Speaks‘, we have with us Ramesh Subramaniam, the founder of Flycart, a hub of some of the most popular WooCommerce Plugins.

In this interview, Ramesh talks briefly about some of the top lessons he has learned, the importance of goal-setting and staying focused. He also mentions his new venture Cartrabbit, which gives a simplified solution to the users to build their own Business.

We thank Ramesh for inspiring us with his words of wisdom. We hope you guys enjoy going through his informative answers.

I Checked that you worked as a Principal Correspondent in “The Hindu”. So, what inspired you to enter into the field of WordPress/WooCommerce?

I was introduced to the world of Open Source when I was covering the Education sector. Linux has become my favorite operating system quickly. At one point in time, I had 5 Linux distros in my Celeron based PC!  Then I wanted to design a blog for myself to share my knowledge, which is when I got introduced to WordPress and Joomla. I was trying to code the blog myself. I learned to code. One led to another and soon I found myself writing extensions/plugins on my own.

Tell us the idea behind Cartrabbit?

Well, we have been developing extensions/plugins for both WordPress and Joomla. And we also wanted to enter into the Software-as-a-Service marketing. And our strength is in the eCommerce domain, especially in the marketing, conversion rate optimization and customer retention. That’s how Cartrabbit was born 🙂

As the Founder of a company with multiple product lines, you must have a lot of responsibilities. So, what do you enjoy the most in your job?

We have awesome teams at Cartrabbit, which helps us manage different products. So my responsibilities in the company primarily revolve around product direction, nurturing the talent, building an awesome culture and training. We were able to hire leaders and groom them to lead the teams in product development, customer support, and content.

So, I have now been devoting a good amount of time in the development of Retainful – our customer retention tool for WooCommerce and Shopify and enjoy working closely with its users.

We all have a regular routine to start the day. What’s your routine?

Coffee to start with!!!  We’re a customer-first company, right from day one. So my first task will always be reading every single conversation/tickets from the customers. We learn from them a lot. This is followed by a daily review and follow-up with product teams. I love talking to our customers, learning their problems and working with them to solve the pain points. So there will be at least a few one-to-one calls every day!

What do you love most about the WordPress ecosystem?

Openness and the vibrancy. WordPress is a large, thriving ecosystem with a huge number of users. I have never seen any other community that is quite active and vibrant for a longer period like WordPress. People are quite helpful, friendly and ready to support.

What are the projects you are currently working on?

Retainful. It is a customer retention tool for WooCommerce and Shopify. It helps store owners to recover abandoned carts, drive repeat purchases and turn their existing customers into brand advocates.

While most merchants focus solely on acquiring customers by spending tons of money, they often forget their existing customer base. So we are trying to help the merchants to retain their existing customers and increase the revenue.

What according to you the future holds for WordPress/WooCommerce?

WordPress powers about 34% of the websites in the Internet. And WooCommerce powers over 28% of online stores. That’s an impressive number. The Internet is a vast space and it keeps exploding (I won’t say expanding) every minute. And WordPress continues to adopt these   changes. Take for example, the REST API, Gutenberg editor, WPGraphQL (if you want to run a headless CMS with WordPress). So there is a huge scope for WordPress and WooCommerce to grow.

We know it’s difficult to manage the work-life balance, so how do you unwind yourself after a long day?

I work with an amazing team. So the workplace is kind of fun and you don’t even start feeling like you are working. We have done away with a number of stress-inducing stuff like hierarchies and attendances. Reading, mostly non-fiction, has been my favorite after-work activity and long walks 🙂

What is the motivation behind your success and what advice you want to give people who want to follow your path?

When you work with awesome people, you get motivated easily. If you like to get started with a career in WordPress or any platform, you will have to talk to your customers – your potential audience. When you have an idea, don’t discuss it only with your friends or the team. Go out and talk to real people who are going to be your customers.

If you can solve a problem well, really well, then your product/service will be successful.

 

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