20-Year Journey of a Fat Startup with Major Pivots: Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How did you spin the Java story?

Scott Sellers: The other two founders worked for a company called Shasta Networks. This was in the late 90s. It was a cable and DSL model termination system. They built an appliance to do this. They put together the hardware and wrote a ton of software to make it all work. In the late 90s, they chose Java inside this appliance. This was on the leading edge in terms of what Java is capable of. They had a really nice outcome by selling it to Redback.

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Sramana Mitra: The other advantage you have is, there is a substantial enterprise software buyer market in Europe as well. The Indian buyer market is not as mature. Europe has lots of large enterprises that buy a lot of technology. You could build a substantial business catering to European enterprise customers. That’s one observation.

The second one is that language is an issue in Europe more than in India. In India, the business operates mostly in English. There’s a bit more of a language issue in Europe. English is, not necessarily, the lingua franca of Europe. In your region, English is more of the lingua franca.

Video FAQs

20-Year Journey of a Fat Startup with Major Pivots: Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was your role in that founding team?

Scott Sellers: I was in the hardware engineering team. I managed the team and did a lot of coding and Verilog to do the chip design. We did all of our backend chip design in-house. I sat on the Board and raised money. It’s always the most entertaining part about building a company. It’s wonderful when you’re successful too. It’s so exciting when you’re at that inception point. It’s nothing other than the potential that you’re talking about.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping with Services from Romania to over $5M

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

Tremend Managing Partner Marius Hanganu has built a services company from Romania to over $5 million in revenue. When we spoke in 2018, he was trying to bootstrap a product using the services business.

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

Marius Hanganu: I’m from Romania. I was born near the seaside. At an early age, we moved to the capital city of Bucharest. My father is an Admiral in the Navy. A bit of that made a mark on myself. I got into computers around 12. I got into the Polytechnic University of Bucharest in the Computer Science Department. It’s probably the best in the country.

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June 2 – 577th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 577th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, June 2, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Steve Eskenazi, Angel Investor (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do some more examples of the kinds of companies you like to invest in. Is Resonato an IT investment?

Steve Eskenazi: It’s a technology company that occupies the intersection of technology and consumer electronics. Our first TVs were thick. Now, TVs are very thin. They are doing for the speaker market what was done to the TV market. They are making flat-core speakers. They don’t make the speakers. They license their technology. They’re heavily patent-protected.