Letting Customers Design The Product: Cornerstone OnDemand CEO Adam Miller (Part 4)

Sramana: When you decided you were going to sell to large enterprises and you were going to aggregate the online training providers, what did you learn in terms of demand? What were enterprises looking for? Adam Miller: Back then, there were already competitors in the space. We assumed that as a startup we would have

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Letting Customers Design The Product: Cornerstone OnDemand CEO Adam Miller (Part 3)

Sramana: How long did you do that job? Adam Miller: I did that job for two years, through the summer of 1999. Sramana: By then the dot-com bubble was in full swing. Adam Miller: More important for me, I had developed a specific interest in education and technology.

Letting Customers Design The Product: Cornerstone OnDemand CEO Adam Miller (Part 2)

Sramana: How long were you able to keep that crazy schedule? Adam Miller: I did that for almost three years. It was intense. When I look at the pictures from back then, I can tell that I did not sleep. I did have a very good time because I got my closest friends from high

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Letting Customers Design The Product: Cornerstone OnDemand CEO Adam Miller (Part 1)

Adam Miller is the founder, president and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand, a leading SaaS company. Prior to founding Cornerstone, he was a lawyer and an investment banker. He worked in corporate finance with Schroders (now Citi Financial) and an affiliate of Montgomery Securities (now Bank of America), supporting clients with private equity and public financing,

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How To Build A Strong IP Portfolio: rPost CEO Zafar Khan (Part 7)

Sramana: In your history of the 11 years, have you litigated using these patents offensively before now? Zafar Khan: Yes. As the market becomes more interesting with shorter sales cycles, it is natural that more people want to get into the marketplace. We are trying to make it more well known that we are the

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How To Build A Strong IP Portfolio: rPost CEO Zafar Khan (Part 6)

Sramana: Going back to the beginning of your company, at what point did you start considering and filing for patents? It is expensive to go through the legal process of filing for patents and getting them approved. Zafar Khan: It is a very expensive experience, not just from the aspect of filing for the patents

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How To Build A Strong IP Portfolio: rPost CEO Zafar Khan (Part 5)

Sramana: How has your company progressed through 2011? What has your growth rate been? Zafar Khan: We raised our first private capital in 2001. We raised capital through a number of private financings over the course of time. We signed on the U.S. Government Accountability Office as our first government customer in 2003.

How To Build A Strong IP Portfolio: rPost CEO Zafar Khan (Part 4)

Sramana: What was the go to market strategy that you followed beyond your guerilla marketing efforts? How did you drive greater user adoption? Zafar Khan: For Registered Email we focused on a global business plan and devised a strategy to make our service the global business standard. We wanted to be the international standard for

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