Can You Do It All? BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker (Part 5)

SM: What happened in 2004 when your competitor started out and you were running out of cash? TT: I wanted to quit a thousand times. I would wake up at 1 a.m. just worrying about the money and payroll. We cut people but still had a $50,000 payroll. I would call my friends from SunGard

Read Full Article »

Can You Do It All? BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker (Part 4)

SM: Tell me about the origins of BlackLine. What was it and how did you get it started? TT: Officially I started it in 2001, but it really got going in 2002. I started it as a wealth management software company, and I used the money I made from SunGard to fund it.

Can You Do It All? BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker (Part 3)

SM: After you gave up freelance programming, did you find a job? TT: I received a job offer from ADS Associates, but I was five months pregnant. My mother told me that I had to tell them I was pregnant; otherwise, they would never trust me.

Can You Do It All? BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker (Part 2)

SM: What year was that? TT: That was in 1981. I fell in love with programming. The very first computer program I wrote was a blinking Christmas tree with asterisks. That was the only computer course that Wesleyan offered; however, the University of Illinois was a couple of hours away. They have a very good

Read Full Article »

Can You Do It All? BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker (Part 1)

Therese Tucker is the CEO and founder of BlackLine Systems, an account reconciliation and financial close software provider. Prior to that she served as CTO at SunGard Treasury Systems. Therese was comfortably retired from SunGard – and had two school-age children at home – when she decided to merge her two talents, technology and finance,

Read Full Article »

A Real-Time, Multimedia Social Network You Might Not Know: Paltalk CEO Jason Katz (Part 7)

SM: Why did you buy your shares back from Softbank, and why did Softbank allow you to do that? JK: When VCs invest in a business, the have an expectation of a profitable exit. By 2009, Softbank had been invested for five years and we were profitable, but they had not received a return on

Read Full Article »

A Real-Time, Multimedia Social Network You Might Not Know: Paltalk CEO Jason Katz (Part 6)

SM: In the ten years you have been in business, how has the business progressed? Where have you made money and gained traction? JK: We have had good traction. In the early years we were viral, explosive, and unique. That lasted for three years and allowed us to launch with no marketing money. When the

Read Full Article »

A Real-Time, Multimedia Social Network You Might Not Know: Paltalk CEO Jason Katz (Part 5)

SM: Who do you consider your competitors based on where your business is today? JK: Skype certainly is when it comes to video conferencing. They did a great job with the PC to phone service, although we had that offering before they did. I personally think Skype did a great job recognizing that international calling

Read Full Article »