Sramana Mitra: Who were the customers you were going after? Were these enterprise customers? Andre Durand: We didn’t know at that time. The truth was it was big enterprises that had this problem. Sramana Mitra: Since your background was selling to bulletin board kind of people, you didn’t really have any enterprise software sales experience.
Sramana Mitra: I’m particularly interested in understanding the predictive part of it. Let’s understand how you predict stuff based on a use case. Stephanie Newby: The best way to think of that is to start tracking things and look for correlation between things. Then test them out. Start with some hypothesis, test that out and
Sramana Mitra: The growth rate did not shift when you went from services to product? James Litton: During the transition, on some level, it probably slowed. There were some critical things that we had to go through. As an entrepreneur, it’s scary. You’re going from something that you know into a world that you don’t
Sramana Mitra: They were people who had made money off you before, so they had confidence in your ability. Andre Durand: Exactly. On January 4, I moved my computer from the corner office in Jabber. I think we had 50 people working at the company. I announced that I was going to start something new.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s take a few different use cases and segments and understand how people are using your technology. You started about the movie and entertainment industry. You can pick a customer and talk about how, where, and how this is being used. Stephanie Newby: I’m actually now sure which customers I can discuss from
Sramana Mitra: All your existing K-12 services clients came with you to this product? James Litton: Yes, because we were extremely focused on the customer. That continues to be a central part of the Identity Automation ethos. It’s not just paying lip service to it, but actually living up to that. I think the real testimony
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 297th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, March 10, 2016, 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 straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and she’ll answer any
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