SM: Childcare is a major item in one’s monthly budget. People do have to think of it, because for most aspiring entrepreneurs, or indeed anyone who works, it is a huge issue. JH: To have your own company, and to be the solo leader of that company, while at the same time having a family
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What do you think angel-backed founders could do to increase their chances of success? Alan: Have a very rich father. No, seriously, there are a couple of very common errors that companies make that if they could avoid those, they’d really make – particularly the capital
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: On average, from all sources, how many pitches do you receive a month? Jeff: It’s hundreds. It varies. I would say like five to ten a day on average. And then some days are busier so, it really depends. A lot of those sometimes aren’t qualified.
By Sramana Mitra and guest authors Pablo Chacin and Saurabh Mallik SM: Okay, let’s now switch the discussion to what you see from where you sit – what would you say are open problems in cloud computing where entrepreneurs can zero in and build businesses to solve problems? PT: Well, I was going to say,
By guest author Tony Scott SaaS, the Cloud, and Changing Customer Expectations Tony: How are your customers adapting to the world of SaaS and cloud computing? Are they asking for a different approach than what you have provided in the past? Vivek: Customers are looking at from this way: “Can you take the application, take
SM: It is incredibly challenging to have a career, let alone be an entrepreneur, and have a baby. JH: I feel very strongly that I can create an environment where women who have a skill and are talented and driven are welcomed at our company. I just hired a head of customer experience who had
By Sramana Mitra and guest authors Pablo Chacin and Saurabh Mallik SM: Why don’t we go through the six towers? This would just be a small exercise in validating that. PT: Sure. So for business analytics, obviously it’s based on Cognos, based on the Linux on System z platform. For collaboration, we are using LotusLive
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Jeff: Sometimes people will catch my attention. Someone the other day reached me via Twitter. I looked at what he was doing. It was a 20-year-old kid who was trying to put a company together, so I gave him some advice around how to think about his