Building a Cyber Security Company from Israel: Aki Eldar, CEO of Secure Islands (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: In 2014, all the money that you raised was from Credit Suisse Next? Aki Eldar: Only from Credit Suisse Next, which was also a vote of trust coming from a customer. Sramana Mitra: What’s the next milestone? Aki Eldar: The next milestone is we’re expanding worldwide. We have an office in the US.

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Building a Cyber Security Company from Israel: Aki Eldar, CEO of Secure Islands (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What year did you get that customer? Aki Eldar: 2010. Sramana Mitra: The financial crisis has settled a little bit. I was raising my eyebrows that you got a financial institution. A little bit of time had passed from the calamity. Aki Eldar: They had a huge problem. We were the only one

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Bootstrapping to Exit in Israel: Eli Sasson, Founder of Minicom (Part 7)

Sramana: How long did it take for people to start engaging you once you had decided to sell the company? Eli Sasson: It is hard to say because we did not start the process at a particular date and time. We gradually moved into the decision and gradually made it known. I would say that

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Bootstrapping to Exit in Israel: Eli Sasson, Founder of Minicom (Part 6)

Sramana: How did you manage your rapid growth from $5 million to $25 million? Eli Sasson: We had to expand the management layer of the company. That was the key first step. We added additional information systems to enhance reporting. We had to really build out all aspects of the company.

Bootstrapping to Exit in Israel: Eli Sasson, Founder of Minicom (Part 5)

Sramana: When did you make the pivot into the KVM market? Eli Sasson: We did that in the mid-1990s. From 1995 on, we were active in both the educational market and the KVM [keyboard, video and mouse] market. The KVM market ultimately emerged as the primary market. By the time we took on funding, our

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Bootstrapping to Exit in Israel: Eli Sasson, Founder of Minicom (Part 4)

Sramana: How did you bridge the product gap? You had built a product for PCs, and then many of your potential customers ended up using PS/2. How did you bridge the gap? Eli Sasson: Byte magazine covered the older product, but that was also at a point where we were also almost ready to release

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Bootstrapping to Exit in Israel: Eli Sasson, Founder of Minicom (Part 3)

Sramana: What were some of your lessons learned in those early days of forming the company? Eli Sasson: We had some unpleasant hiccups on our way. We did all of the design and product research. We based everything on the PC environment, but during the same time, IBM pushed the PS/2 very aggressively in the

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Bootstrapping to Exit in Israel: Eli Sasson, Founder of Minicom (Part 2)

Sramana: Who were the first few educators who embraced the concept? During the time we are talking about, it must have been difficult to get teachers to embrace technology. Eli Sasson: We spent money and hired an industrial designer. We had a clear understanding of what we wanted. We knew what we wanted the interface

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