From Czechoslovakia to Silicon Valley: Roman Stanek’s Journey to GoodData (Part 6)

Sramana: It is good that you have identified a process for moving into new business areas, particularly since you are a SaaS-based business. Roman Stanek: SaaS is an unforgiving business. It is a resource-intensive business, and customers can always churn. There is loyalty, but it is only gained by quality service. There is a very

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Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Miko Matsumura, Senior Vice President, Developer Relations, Kii Corporation (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: This exit that you are talking about in Japan, a $25 million to $30 million revenue company, what kind of market gap do you see for this? Miko Matsumura: The market gap range is $100 million. SM: And what is the range of the multiples you can get on something like this in

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Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Venkat Viswanathan, CEO of LatentView Analytics (Part 8)

Sramana Mitra: The only issue there is you would need people who can learn in that mode. That means you would need a high-end set of people already. Venkat Viswanathan: I agree. There is no getting away from the quality of people issue. The only aspect that has been a revelation for me is that

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Thursday, January 31 – 159th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 159th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, January 31, 2013, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/9:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea to Sramana Mitra. You’ll gain constructive feedback and she’ll answer any of your questions. Others

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From Czechoslovakia to Silicon Valley: Roman Stanek’s Journey to GoodData (Part 5)

Sramana: What were the steps that you took to validate your concept? Who was the first customer you went to talk to who resonated with your value proposition? Roman Stanek: I absolutely believe that as much as you can validate a business model there is no substitution for intuition. The opposite applies as well. If

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Catching Up On Readings: The Government and Email Privacy

Google made news when it announced that it will require government agencies to have probable-cause warrants before delivering the contents of Gmail. We’ll have more on the tech giant tomorrow. Click on the paragraph link for the rest of this week’s posts.

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Miko Matsumura, Senior Vice President, Developer Relations, Kii Corporation (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s look at the iOS app store, for instance. I recently read an article that said that the top 25 apps make most of their revenues. Those include companies like Electronic Arts. A lot of them are games. Games seem to be dominating the monetization category. What is your observation about that very

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Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Venkat Viswanathan, CEO of LatentView Analytics (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Part of the issue is that India is experiencing this talent crunch as well. How do you see it panning out if there is such scale of growth? This is not low-end talent; we are talking about high-end skill sets. Venkat Viswanathan: History may not repeat itself. I don’t believe India will be

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