Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 4)

Sramana: Let’s fast forward to March 2009. How have the relationship with the distributors and the operational mechanics of your business changed? Sachin Bansal: We actually opened another distribution center in Dehli. To our surprise, almost every distributor in India knew about us, so it was not hard to make a new relationship in Dehli.

Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 3)

Sramana: How much money did you put into acquiring inventory to sell? Sachin Bansal: They had computer systems which maintained inventory of their stock. We received a download of that every day.

Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 2)

Sramana: Why did you decide to write a comparative shopping engine? Sachin Bansal: They were a big thing in the U.S. but there were not any in India. We started doing some market research. We found that there were almost no other sites to compare against. Rearden Commerce was the only company that had any

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Building India’s Amazon: Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  [Also check out my Entrepreneur Journeys book, Seed India – How To Navigate The Seed Capital Gap in India] I first learned about Flipkart when I discovered that Flipkart is the only e-commerce company in India that is selling my books online. Subsequently, they became the only company in India

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9.4M Dollars In Concept Financing To 100M In Bookings: Palo Alto Networks Founder Nir Zuk (Part 7)

Sramana: Today, does Palo Alto Networks still sell just one product? Nir Zuk: Yes, although we have added a lot of features to it. We have mid-range and low-end platforms.

9.4M Dollars In Concept Financing To 100M In Bookings: Palo Alto Networks Founder Nir Zuk (Part 6)

Sramana: Cost of development is also attributed to quality design. Perhaps you gained significant savings because of that? Nir Zuk: We saved money because we were able to hire extremely high quality engineers in the United States. You can’t hire the same quality of engineers in China or India.

9.4M Dollars In Concept Financing To 100M In Bookings: Palo Alto Networks Founder Nir Zuk (Part 5)

Sramana: Who were your first customers? Were they in the financial industry? Nir Zuk: No, the finance industry is hard to get into. Our first customers were high-tech companies here in Silicon Valley. One of our first customers was SanDisk, a cutting-edge company. We also had an Constellation Energy, a Fortune 500 company on the

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9.4M Dollars In Concept Financing To 100M In Bookings: Palo Alto Networks Founder Nir Zuk (Part 4)

Sramana: How did it make you feel to watch your IPS drop to last in the marketplace when you were at Juniper? Nir Zuk: I did not like Juniper at all. The first day after they acquired NetScreen they came and explained to us that we did not know what we were doing and that

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