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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
Getting Customers to Prepay to Start Up, Then Building a $300M Business: RMS CEO Hemant Shah (Part 3)
Sramana: So you had the idea that you could approach your customers and ask them if they felt the problem was significant? Hemant Shah: Yes. Rather than shying away from the risk, they could have an alternative that was better than burying their heads in the sand. Some of them were so worried, they would
Getting Customers to Prepay to Start Up, Then Building a $300M Business: RMS CEO Hemant Shah (Part 2)
Sramana: It sounds like you were targeting insurance companies. Hemant Shah: Exactly. From 1989 our initial business plan called out the insurance vertical world-wide as a core market. We served hundreds of insurers, re-insurers, and specialist hedge funds that take on financial risk directly or indirectly from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, global disease and pandemics.
Getting Customers to Prepay to Start Up, Then Building a $300M Business: RMS CEO Hemant Shah (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Hemant Shah is the co-founder, president and CEO of RMS, a leader in catastrophic risk modeling. He co-founded RMS in 1989 based on his research work at Stanford University. Twenty years later, RMS is a global leader in developing models for things such as hurricanes, terrorist
Building a Global Software Company from France: BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés-Faura (Part 7)
Sramana: How many people do you have in San Francisco versus France? Miguel Valdés-Faura: In France we have our headquarters and engineering based in one location, and our sales and marketing based in Paris. We have 70 people in our headquarters and 30 people in Paris. We have 25 people in the US, most of
Building a Global Software Company from France: BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés-Faura (Part 6)
Sramana: What is the profile of a good inside sales rep for selling your product? Miguel Valdés-Faura: We have had good luck with recent MBA graduates and we have some good relationships with some MBA schools. Typically we are hiring people into their first or second job. These are typically young, smart people who have
Building a Global Software Company from France: BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés-Faura (Part 5)
Sramana: What is the profile of the customers who were willing to purchase subscriptions? Miguel Valdés-Faura: We wanted to focus on technical people in medium and large organizations. We believe that those are the people who will influence a purchase. We have kept that target today because that is the market that will purchase subscriptions.
Building a Global Software Company from France: BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés-Faura (Part 4)
Sramana: As you were coming out of Bull and setting BonitaSoft up as a separate company, how did you handle branding? Was BonitaSoft the original brand, or was the brand originally Bonita? Miguel Valdés-Faura: Bonita was the name of the project. Nobody had the Bonita trademark in the first eight years, so this brand is
Building a Global Software Company from France: BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés-Faura (Part 3)
Sramana: How did you make the transition from Bull to BonitaSoft? Miguel Valdés-Faura: My role at Bull was not only to deploy Bonita. As the director of the BPM division, I was there to help Bull services worldwide. At times we implemented solutions that were competitors of Bonita. We have had projects in South America