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Bootstrapping a Virtualization Services Company: Chris Grandi, CEO of Abacus Group (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How has your revenue ramped from the 2007 time frame to 2015? Where are you now?

Chris Grandi: We’re growing over 50% per year. In year one, we started our revenue with less than a million dollars. You grow a 100% when your revenue is smaller. Our revenue is significantly bigger now but we’re still growing at more than 50%.  I actually don’t think that we can grow this company at greater than 50% because of the service levels that we have to provide. I will be very pleased if we continue to grow at 50%.

Sramana Mitra: You’re still doing it as a self-financed business? >>>

Concept Financing from Andreessen Horowitz: Andrew Rubin, CEO of Illumio (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What did you do in the Valley?

Andrew Rubin: In every sense of the word, people talk about luck, timing, and fate being not everything, but an important part of the story.

Sramana Mitra: It’s a very big thing.

Andrew Rubin: It’s an incredibly important part of the story in my case. While I was at Cymtec, I was coming out to California for conferences and to visit colleagues. On one of those trips before I moved out here, I was introduced to PJ Kirner who is the co-founder and CTO of Illumio. We were introduced by a mutual colleague who thought that we might enjoy talking about security and talking about views of the world that he believed we shared in common. PJ and I got together and had lunch. That started a conversation that, in a lot of ways, lasted a year and a half and led to the formation of Illumio. >>>

A Serial Entrepreneur’s Process: Todd Dunlop, CEO of RingPartner (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You seem to be enjoying the process of starting something, figuring a niche, and getting it to a certain amount of revenue. The first one you scaled to $50 million in revenue, which was a substantial amount of revenue. It sounds like you like to figure it out and then sell the company. Is that accurate?

Todd Dunlop: That definitely has been my MO to this point. That challenge of the problem solving is something I enjoy and excel at. Ultimately, the real fun for me is cracking the business model.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. Presumably you’re going to sell this one not too far from now because you’ve already figured out the business model. >>>

Bootstrapping a Virtualization Services Company: Chris Grandi, CEO of Abacus Group (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What is it about the hedge fund space in terms of work flows or virtualization? What specifically is different in that space versus other verticals?

Chris Grandi: There are really two things that make the hedge fund space different. One is the level of service. Because of what hedge fund managers do and how active they trade, everything has to work all the time. We all know that in technology, that’s not necessarily feasible, but the service level demand of giving them the best technology and the best service around that technology is higher than in any other industry I’ve ever been a part of. Correspondingly, because they’re hedge funds, their economic model is great. Their willingness to pay is higher. From the standpoint of just service levels, it’s very unique to hedge funds. If trading systems go down for 20 seconds, they could lose millions of dollars. You really have to prioritize building not only enterprise class technology, but also the various other redundancies. >>>

Concept Financing from Andreessen Horowitz: Andrew Rubin, CEO of Illumio (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What year does this bring us up to?

Andrew Rubin: It was in 1998 that I graduated from university.

Sramana Mitra: How long did you work in the first job?

Andrew Rubin: I stayed in my first job for under five years.

Sramana Mitra: This brings us to about 2003 then?

Andrew Rubin: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What happens then? >>>

A Serial Entrepreneur’s Process: Todd Dunlop, CEO of RingPartner (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How much did you sell it for?

Todd Dunlop: Unfortunately, I can’t disclose that.

Sramana Mitra: You’ve made a substantial amount of money in that exit so that whatever you then chose to do next, you had capital available?

Todd Dunlop: That’s correct.

Sramana Mitra: What was the next venture?

Todd Dunlop: From there, I created a company called BetaStreet. The idea behind BetaStreet is I use it to either invest in or start a unique company. My philosophy that took me a while to get to is, if there’s something that I’m interested in, then that’s a great opportunity for me to invest. If it’s something that I’m passionate about, then that’s an opportunity for me to be a partner or to be involved in. >>>

Bootstrapping a Virtualization Services Company: Chris Grandi, CEO of Abacus Group (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was going to be the new company? What did you find that warrants doing another company?

Chris Grandi: This is one thing that I always tell the entrepreneurs I speak to. You always hear about entrepreneurs who start a company when they’re super young and don’t have a lot of experience, and they’re successful. That happens but ultimately, I’ve always believed that if you do something long enough, you get smart in it and get domain experience. Your risk of success is much greater.

I saw a better technical solution to the previous company. I believed that the company who does this 10 years from now is going to be bigger than any of the companies in the space. >>>

Concept Financing from Andreessen Horowitz: Andrew Rubin, CEO of Illumio (Part 1)

Concept financings are extremely rare in the industry these days, but here is a story of an entrepreneur who did raise $8 million on a concept from Andreessen Horowitz.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Andrew Rubin: I was born in Brooklyn, New York back in 1976. Most people hear New York City and they think of Manhattan right away, but Brooklyn is right next to Manhattan. That’s where my life began. I was born and raised in New York. I’ve lived in New York all the way up until I left at the end of high school. That’s where my journey begins.

Sramana Mitra: After high school, where did you go? Where did you do your college? >>>