SM: At what point did you launch the external drive business? You are now building two parallel businesses that will converge at some point. What is that evolution? MC: We spent a lot of 2006 looking for potential alternatives. We had the option to build it organically, but that is a capital intensive activity. Our
SM: How did you go to market with this? Where did you position it, and where did you see uptick? MC: The final feature is total aggregation, which we will announce and take to market in the fourth quarter. It will initially go with our consumer products, which are sold in retail. The base version
SM: What was myFabrik.com’s value proposition? MC: The original value proposition was to create a media management system that would allow users to have all of their media connected to the web. We did it in two forms, a web service and an integrated appliance.
SM: What role did you hold at Maxtor when all of the product innovation was occurring? MC: I was the EVP of Sales and Marketing. The Branded Products division reported up through me.
SM: What was it about a turnaround that attracted you? MC: The challenge of the situation. I had already experienced a high growth company at Conner. I wanted to see the renovation and the rebuilding.
Mike Cordano is the CEO and co-founder of Fabrik. Prior to Fabrik he served as executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Maxtor Corporation, where he was responsible for the formation and management of the Branded Products business unit. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado. SM: Mike, take us back
SM: What kind of revenue levels did the AIG deal let you obtain? KK: It was about $16 million in revenue. Unilever was another client who came into the picture around the same time as AIG. Today we have work all over the world just for Unilever.
SM: Was it easier for you to build expertise in India, or build a larger customer base? KK: It was definitely easier to build up our expertise, which is one of the reasons we developed our strategy of working to get deep access into our customer base. We also felt we were lucky to have