Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 4)

SM: Who was your first enterprise customer? FL: We had a couple of big customers very early. Edmunds.com was a big customer of ours, as was Qualcomm. TIAA-CREF was another. Those companies became a beachhead for us to get follow-on customers such as Hyatt.

Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 3)

SM: Did you bootstrap ServiceNow? FL: In the beginning it was completely bootstrapped. I had a couple guys volunteering who worked on nights and weekends, and that helped me out. However, it was really just me and a dozen customers at that point.

Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 2)

SM: What were you doing at Peregrine? FL: I was the chief technology officer from 1990 until the end of 2003. We built software for the help desk and service desk market. The company grew from $4.5 million a year to $500 million a year. We acquired a lot of companies before Peregrine Corporation had

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Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 1)

Fred Luddy founded ServiceNow.com in early 2004 and has served as chief executive and technology officer since the company’s inception. He was CTO at Peregrine Systems from 1990 to 2003. Prior to Peregrine, he founded Enterprise Software Associates (ESA), and worked at Boole and Babbage, and the Amdahl Corporation. Fred tried to attend Indiana University

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How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 7)

SM: I often tell entrepreneurs to bootstrap the early stage, and if they do raise money it should result in a better valuation. They have a validated business. Did you find that to be the case during your valuation negotiations? CC: We are a great example of bootstrapping paying off. In Q3 2004 we raised

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How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 6)

SM: How did you find your initial customers? CC: We used things like cold calls, Silicon Valley networking, and friends of friends. When you’re starting from nothing, you do whatever it takes. I was talking to anyone who would listen. I networked heavily, got friends to send me ideas, and went to alumni databases.

How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 5)

SM: What does the financial structure of a business spun out of Stanford look like? Do they take an equity position? CC: I get that question a lot, and I can’t comment directly because each case is unique. The thing to remember about Stanford is that they license more than startups. They license a lot

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How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 4)

SM: Your previous work experience gave you an actual user’s point of view. You are solving a problem you faced earlier in your life. CC: Exactly. Even within the world of information visualization, there many different schools of thought, and I learned about many of those in my first job.