Sramana Mitra: What was the business idea that you were playing with at that point? Trevor Traina: The business became Compare.net. Sramana Mitra: Comparative shopping online? Trevor Traina: Exactly. Sramana Mitra: What year are we talking about now? Trevor Traina: 1996. Sramana Mitra: What happened? How did that go? Trevor Traina: At that time, all
I have spoken with many VCs who are looking or e-commerce companies that can scale at venture pace, which is hard to achieve. On the other side of the spectrum, however, the bootstrapped e-commerce companies are going gangbusters! Saatva is one such and a terrific company. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal back story.
Sramana Mitra: Can you talk about what made that a successful transition? What did you do as a founder? What did your new CEO do as the incoming CEO? Obviously, it has been a successful transition since you’re working with this person for a while. Ross Mason: A few things. Bringing someone new in is
Trevor has built several businesses and is now working in a segment that he naturally aligns with—luxury experiences. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? Trevor Traina: I was born and raised in San Francisco. On my father’s side, I’m
Sramana Mitra: Do you have drivers that a lot of people need that you’re making significant business out of? Have you seen that? Ross Mason: We certainly see clusters around certain SaaS applications. Obviously, Salesforce is leading the charge on enterprise. They really opened up that market. As such, we have a very strong relationship
Sramana Mitra: You decided to come back to London? Ross Mason: Yes. On the way back, we went through the Pacific Islands. My wife said, “Let’s stop in San Francisco because we haven’t seen it. You talk about it a lot.” When I landed in San Francisco, there was this conference JavaOne, which was very
Sramana Mitra: Were you working with other clients? Of course, you had deep insight into the problem with your experience but did you also work with other clients at that time? Ross Mason: The way it came about was in 2003, I decided to leave the company I was working at and go traveling through
Ross bootstrapped Mulesoft with a paycheck and also with services. Now, the company has raised over $130 million—the last round at an $800 million valuation. Very interesting story! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were your born and raised? Ross Mason: I was born