Analysis of Zscaler’s Acquisition of Canonic Security

Cloud security provider Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) recently reported its quarterly performance that outpaced market expectations. Zscaler is seeing delays in the closing of big deals and expects its billings to slow down in the near future. But it continues to grow in the current economic conditions through acquisitions.

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A Conversation on Regional Language Content: Kocowa CEO KunHee Park (Part 1)

There’s quite a bit of white space in the domain of regional language content.

KunHee talks about Korean content. It should give you ideas that you can extrapolate into other languages.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start from the very beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped, Went Public and Scaled to $450M

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

When we spoke with Founder Mark Lancaster in 2014, very few technology companies had been built from the UK. ARM and Autonomy come to mind. Here’s the story of a company called SDL.

Sramana: Mark, let’s start with the beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? What is the backstory of the SDL story?

Mark Lancaster: I was born and raised in the UK. I studied engineering and computer science at the university. I started my career as a software design engineer at Satchwell Control Systems and Lotus Development Company. Fairly early on, one of the biggest issues I saw at companies was the need for coders or programmers to engage effectively with management.

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Video FAQs

Solo Entrepreneur to $10M+ Niche E-commerce Success: DoggieLawn Founder Natalie Youn (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get to a million dollars in revenue?

Natalie Youn: It took until year two – around the end.

Sramana Mitra: $5 million?

Catching Up On Readings: State of AI 2022

This report from CB Insights covers the funding trends and highlights of the AI ecosystem. Global AI funding fell 34% to $45.88B in 2022 but rebounded in Q4’22, which had five new AI unicorns. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Colors: Wine Country, Aerial II

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Wine Country, Aerial II

Wine Country, Aerial II | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper

Solo Entrepreneur to $10M+ Niche E-commerce Success: DoggieLawn Founder Natalie Youn (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The real issue is, can you find a niche that is not overcrowded? Every niche is so crowded. Doing advertising is not easy because keywords cost so much money. Maybe you were getting traffic from pee pads and potty training. Even that traffic, by now, is super expensive.

What’s intriguing is that you were introducing a new solution to that problem. Your organic traffic was discovering a new solution to a known problem.

Natalie Youn: Right.

Colors: Wine Country, Aerial I

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Wine Country, Aerial I

Wine Country, Aerial I | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper