Sramana Mitra: One thing about these large VCs is that a first-time entrepreneur with no background in a particular technology area has absolutely no chance of raising money from a large VC today for a fat startup. Jedidiah Yueh: I managed to do it as an English major in 2000. Sramana Mitra: Yes, it’s a
Sramana Mitra: My next question is around customer acquisition. It sounds like this is all direct selling. Jedidiah Yueh: Yes. We work with channel partners, but the majority has been direct enterprise software sales. Sramana Mitra: Are there any nuances in that journey with Delphix starting in the late 2000’s as it moves along? Are
Sramana Mitra: You don’t have a Steve Wozniak that you’re paired up with throughout your journey? Jedidiah Yueh: I had co-founders who were technical. Co-founders come at different levels. Some of them didn’t stay with the companies. I always found technical co-founders to help. Sramana Mitra: It’s more incidental and not a soulmate kind of
Sramana Mitra: What was the competitive landscape like? Jedidiah Yueh: Two years after we started the company and we started marketing the product and the space, we had a competitor enter the market called Data Domain. In the end, both companies were sold to EMC. They were sold for over $2 billion. There’s another lesson
Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to launch your product from that round? Jedidiah Yueh: It took us a long time. This was my first time as a founding CEO. I’d never run a development program. I still don’t know how to code. We were four years late in shipping product. We shipped
Sramana Mitra: Carry on. Lead us through the next phase of your journey. Jedidiah Yueh: In some ways, since I’m an accidental entrepreneur or even a reluctant technologist, that was a bit of an advantage. I had lots of ideas and I had friends that had lots of ideas, but I wasn’t interested in starting
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Jed has built two fat startups. This discussion delves into the nuances. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Jedidiah Yueh: The funny thing is, I never