Sramana Mitra: You have probably seen maybe 30% of Internet traffic to homes in the U.S. is due to Netflix? Austin McChord: Yes. Sramana Mitra: Could that be a lever that pushes the ISPs and the carriers to do something about the level of connectivity or the quality of the connection?
Sramana Mitra: What are the gating items in providing that connectivity? Is it that the Internet service providers are not moving fast enough? Is there any kind of technology that is unresolved? Austin McChord: I think there’s just not enough competitive pressure in the market for the quality of Internet service to rise. Lots of
Sramana Mitra: I guess the volume of data depends on what industry you’re in and how much data you’re generating? Austin McChord: Yes, absolutely. Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about trends. What trends do you track given what you’re doing? What are you tracking? What do you see as threats and opportunities?
Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about the SME market. Help me understand the sweet spots. What are the other characteristics of the sweet spots among your audience? Austin McChord: We’re selling into the SMB market space. Our sweet spot is the 20 to 200 seat business. They typically have anywhere from half a terabyte to
Sramana Mitra: You took the financing from Boston VCs? Austin McChord: Yes, from General Catalyst up in Boston. Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about your business. Tell us what you do. What is the competitive landscape that you play in and how do you differentiate?
This interview focuses on some of the bottlenecks facing the cloud services industry in penetrating the SME customer base. Sramana Mitra: Austin, give us a bit of context about you as well as Datto. Austin McChord: I started Datto right out of college about seven years ago. Our goal was to provide backup and SaaS