Reinventing a British Company, American-Style: Steve Millard, CEO of Kognitio (Part 5)

Sramana: What are some of the strategic changes you have made, and what results have you seen from those changes? Steve Millard: Some of the changes that have been made are strategy and targeting changes. Everything we did was focused on getting customers. I have found that a lot of companies that are not successful

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Reinventing a British Company, American-Style: Steve Millard, CEO of Kognitio (Part 4)

Sramana: After you left IBM and joined Kognitio, what were your first impressions? Steve Millard: I quickly realized that this company was about to hit the rocks. We did not have a firm direction or a strategic plan. Combine that with our market environment and the recent marriage of Kognitio and Whitecross, and you will

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Reinventing a British Company, American-Style: Steve Millard, CEO of Kognitio (Part 3)

Sramana: That brings our story to present day. What is the synopsis of the situation you are facing now? Steve Millard: The company has been around for 25 years and has always been successful due to strong, dedicated customers in EMEA. My joining was at an interesting inflection point of the company. Sramana: What was

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Reinventing a British Company, American-Style: Steve Millard, CEO of Kognitio (Part 2)

Sramana: What prompted you to leave the startup space and rejoin IBM? Steve Millard: I was burned out. There is a lot of stress doing three heavy-duty startup roles. I was burnt out on the long hours, stress and pressure. I needed a break, and all three startups were successful. IBM came to me and

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 7)

Sramana: What was the most substantial change that occurred with your business after 2007? Bimal Patwari: After 2007, the biggest change was the size of projects we worked on. We began working on airports, hospitals, and convention centers. That required large teams of up to 40 people working on a project at the same time.

Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 6)

Sramana: Were you able to change the layers of service you provided from 2-D to 3-D? Would you talk about the technologies you were standardizing on? Bimal Patwari: Absolutely. There were several companies that offered modeling software. However, Autodesk has a worldwide presence. Everyone works on their platform. We also bought some other software solutions

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 5)

Sramana: Aside from having a loyal workforce, you have also created a workforce that operates in a niche market. There are not many places in India that your workers are going to be able to move to and leverage American architectural knowledge. Bimal Patwari: That is a factor as well. We invest a lot of

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 4)

Sramana: Why did you elect to establish your U.S. office in Houston? Was that where you client was based? Bimal Patwari: Our client was in Tennessee. I elected to establish the office in Houston because I had friends there. Houston in an engineering hub, and there is a lot of oil and gas industry there.

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