A Late Bloomer on Building a Legitimate Unicorn: Veeva Systems CEO Peter Gassner (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: When you came back, how did you re-engage with the working life? Peter Gassner: It was just a matter of deciding. That was the first decision. I also wanted to do something I was good at. I didn’t want to open a coffee shop and compete with a 23-year-old who knew as much

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From an EIR Experiment to a Fast Growth SaaS Company: Joe Kinsella, Founder and CTO of CloudHealth (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Joe founded CloudHealth as an EIR at a Boston VC firm. Last year the SaaS company had 300 customers. The story explores how he achieved product market fit and found its stride. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are

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A Late Bloomer on Building a Legitimate Unicorn: Veeva Systems CEO Peter Gassner (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What was the trigger to leave Peoplesoft? Peter Gassner: The management team had changed at Peoplesoft. I had started as a developer there. At the end of nine years, I was handling a team of 500 people. I worked hard there. I loved the team I assembled. Then, the management team changed. Culture changed

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A Late Bloomer on Building a Legitimate Unicorn: Veeva Systems CEO Peter Gassner (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How did IBM figure out, given that you have a strange background from their perspective, that you would be good at this stuff? Peter Gassner: My first internship was at IBM. Sramana Mitra: They noted you then. Peter Gassner: Yes, “That’s a kid that can work hard. He gets work done. He’s got

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Building a Billion Dollar Unicorn: Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Also, what you have going in your favour is that the market is starting to understand that on the Internet, content is the brand. I think that understanding is going to drive further and further into the industry in general. Yaron Galai: I don’t view Facebook as being in the business of social networks

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Building a Billion Dollar Unicorn: Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: The publishers are paying a lot more than $10 a month. Yaron Galai: We kept it, initially, at $10 a month but it couldn’t sustain them that way. The publishers said, “If you let us pay on a per-click basis, then we know exactly how many audience we get.” We pivoted on the

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A Late Bloomer on Building a Legitimate Unicorn: Veeva Systems CEO Peter Gassner (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Computer Science is not ambiguous. It’s clear and logical. Part of the thing that I’ve observed at this point in my life, having seen a little bit of life, is that there is a lot of ambiguity and a lot of lack in logic in how human beings operate. I’m a very rational,

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Building a Billion Dollar Unicorn: Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The ratings and the Internet recommendations were free. There were no monetization model around any of that? Yaron Galai: That’s right. Sramana Mitra: The first monetization effort was with the paid recommendation of external content into these larger publishers. What was wrong? Why did the first iteration fail?