Building An Indian Outsourcing Leader: MindTree CEO KK Natarajan (Part 5)

SM: How much financing did you raise to get started? KK: We raised $9.5 million for our first round. We learned that when a group of our caliber is formed, expectations are high. Early on we took the calculated risk of taking a higher level of funding to ensure we could grow the business to

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Building An Indian Outsourcing Leader: MindTree CEO KK Natarajan (Part 4)

SM: Did the team you assembled focus only on India, or did you have a global view? KK: We identified people with varied backgrounds intentionally. We went after people who knew the American market well and had worked consulting jobs there. Scott Staples used to work for Gemini and KPMG and was one of the

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Building An Indian Outsourcing Leader: MindTree CEO KK Natarajan (Part 3)

SM: For how long were you chief marketing officer? KK: I held that position from 1992 to 1993. By 1995 I had moved into an operating role.

Building An Indian Outsourcing Leader: MindTree CEO KK Natarajan (Part 2)

SM: Was your next professional step a move to Wipro? KK: Yes. It was just starting, so I initially went off to Bangalore for a while before I returned to Chennai to open the office there. I was still not sure how Wipro was going to make an impact in the IT business.

Building An Indian Outsourcing Leader: MindTree CEO KK Natarajan (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Krishnakumar Natarajan (KK) is the CEO of MindTree. Prior to co-founding MindTree, KK was chief executive of the Electronic Commerce & Financial Solutions Division at Wipro. KK has been elected to the Executive Council of NASSCOM for three consecutive terms and works towards strengthening India’s position

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Still Innovating in Networking: A10 CEO Lee Chen (Part 7)

SM: With 100 customers what kind of revenue range are you looking at? LC: It is still small, but it is double-digit for 2008. It is growing very fast. We have only been selling for just over a year. Another thing to remember is that our sales cycle is long.

Still Innovating in Networking: A10 CEO Lee Chen (Part 6)

SM: What is the nature of the application delivery kernel? What kind of optimization can you gain? LC: We designed all of our own hardware, and we used mostly merchandised chipsets. Because of that, our hardware is very efficient. We are designed for very fast application layer processing and deep packet scanning.

Still Innovating in Networking: A10 CEO Lee Chen (Part 5)

SM: When you left Foundry in 2004, what was the purpose of your departure? LC: I stayed there for eight years, and I had never stayed anywhere that long. Once the company was well established, and I realized that I had worked in all of the various groups possible, I knew it was time for

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