Finding a Viable Monetization Model: wefi CEO Zur Feldman (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What led you to going to the startup world after all these years of Packard Bell? Zur Feldman: The experience in Packard Bell was very different because when I joined the company, there were 16 people. Packard Bell helped to revolutionize the PC industry and actually create what we see today – all

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April 10 – Next 1M/1M Mentoring Roundtable For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 211th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, April 10, 2014, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea to Sramana Mitra. You’ll gain straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and she’ll answer any

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Scaling a Pre-IPO Enterprise Software Company: Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux (Part 4)

Sramana: When did your transition to Anaplan occur? Fred Laluyaux: This occurred just over 2 years ago. Sramana: When was Anaplan founded? Fred Laluyaux: The story of Anaplan is very interesting. The founder, Michael, was working for a company that was acquired by Cognos, which was later acquired by IBM. There was a lot of

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Mark Mader, CEO of Smartsheet (Part 6)

Mark Mader: Then, there was the promise in native app development that went, “Why don’t you build it with a framework and the framework can propagate your app to all these different device platforms?” That failed miserably. The performance did not meet client’s expectations for almost every provider who tried that. Ten people said, “What’s

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Finding a Viable Monetization Model: wefi CEO Zur Feldman (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  8 million users and no revenue. What do you do? Find out from Zur Feldman. Sramana Mitra: Zur, let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of circumstances? Zur Feldman: I’m originally from Israel. I spent

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Scaling a Pre-IPO Enterprise Software Company: Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux (Part 3)

Sramana: What did you do after the company was sold? Fred Laluyaux: That was in 2006 and for the first time, I found myself working for a real company, Business Objects. I did not think that I would stay there for more than 2 weeks, but I felt responsible for my team. I committed to

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Mark Mader, CEO of Smartsheet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Given that’s your sweet spot, whom do you consider as your direct competitor? Mark Mader: By far in a way, the largest direct competitor remains the traditional spreadsheet. There’s not any other SaaS provider today that uses our form factor – the spreadsheet grid that we present in a collaborative way. When you

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Buliding a Venture Scale Analytics Platform Company: Birst CEO, Brad Peters (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: In that strategy, were you actually partnering with Salesforce and going to market through the AppExchange? Brad Peters: We were. Salesforce is a fairly hands-off partner. I wouldn’t say that it was a huge help. That has generally been my experience talking to other people. You find Salesforce customers on your own and

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