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HOT TOPICS
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Incubating a Fat Startup at Greylock: Ash Ashutosh, CEO of Actifio (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Ash Ashutosh is the CEO of Actifio, a company which provides advanced data storage products. He brings more than 25 years of storage industry and entrepreneurship experience to his role of CEO at Actifio. Ashutosh is a recognized leader and architect in the storage industry where
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: As you have built the company, how has the evolution been? Did you start with large enterprises and come down, or did you start with the mid-market and move up? Todd McKinnon: Initially we had a lot of success with companies that had between 1,000 and 5,000 employees. In the last year and
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: Would you provide some information about your company’s product? What did you ultimately end up building? Todd McKinnon: The product is an identity management system for applications on-premise or in the cloud. It is delivered in the cloud. It is a system of record for which users are allowed to log in to
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Once you had identified identity access as the real problem your target customers faced, what did you do next? Todd McKinnon: I built a paper prototype of the product that was based on identity management and access. I continued to have meetings based on those mock-ups and then moved to webpage demonstrations. Once
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What I am hearing you say is that you were able to have detailed conversations with a lot of potential clients based on a mock-up. I think this is an important point to make. Todd McKinnon: If you talk only about high level concepts then it is difficult to communicate with any level
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: So you started your business off with one hypothesis for a product, and ultimately shifted your product direction based on actual market feedback. Is that a fair statement? Todd McKinnon: We had a macro idea and a specific product that we started off with. The product changed after we talked to companies and
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2009? Todd McKinnon: Ever since I was in high school I wanted to start my own company. The reason I did not do it earlier is that I always had good jobs, and the companies I was with kept challenging me. At PeopleSoft I had a new project every few
First-Time Entrepreneur at 37: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Todd McKinnon is the CEO and co-founder of Okta, an enterprise grade identity management service, built from the ground up in the cloud and delivered with a focus on customer success. Okta enables IT management of access across any application, person or device. Whether the people