Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) has had a tough few weeks in the news. Since the release of the “the facebook files” on the Wall Street Journal, Facebook’s public image has taken a beating. The continuous revelation by whistleblower Frances Hagen on Facebook’s culture has not done the company much good either. But despite that, the company’s profits just keep climbing.
>>>This is a text book case study of founders with deep domain knowledge in starting with services and then productizing, eventually raising institutional capital.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born? Where does your journey begin?
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Following up on our ‘Bootstrapping Using Services‘ and ‘Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later’ case studies, here is the story of PhishMe, a cyber security company that has scaled nicely. Following my conversation with Co-founder Rohyt Belani in 2015, PhishMe was acquired by BlackRock in 2018.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Rohyt Belani: I am originally from India. I was born and raised in India. I was there till the age of 22. I did my engineering in India.
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Sramana Mitra: The other driver, I imagine, is the selection of different products. There is so much innovation happening in the cybersecurity space. It has become very difficult for small companies innovating on specific point products to get into the Global 2000. The Global 2000 CIO’s are really swamped with new products to absorb and evaluate. A specialized managed service provider who does all that product and technology selection would be very attractive.
Amit Saha: Managing and abstracting the customer from the complexity of the tools and integrated them is critical. Another aspect is, identity is moving closer to the business workflow. We have a product called third-party access governance. That access governance in Global 2000 customers varies from industry to industry.
>>>One frustrating observation remains with me. Entrepreneurs constantly come to us for assistance with their funding in situations where their chances of fundraising are ZERO.
We can’t do anything to assist them, regardless of how strong our investor connections are. We can’t help startups get funding until they are fundable. It pains me to see so many entrepreneurs who have no concept of what it takes to raise funds.
>>>The global intelligent process automation market is expected to grow at 11.5% CAGR from $8.1 billion in 2018 to reach $20.7 billion by 2026. New York-based UiPath (NYSE: PATH) recently announced its second-quarter results that continued to outpace market expectations.
>>>Sramana Mitra: What is the level of adoption of the kind of end-to-end solutions you’re talking about at the city or state level?
Ariel Stern: Not that high. Some cities or municipalities are very advanced. They have a strong leadership team. They have a strong appetite for innovation. They understand that digital innovation is key for the operation and adopt digital tools. The number of such utilities is very low for numerous reasons.
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