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Achieving Product-Market Fit That Allows You to Build Billion Dollar Unicorns: Gaurav Dhillon, Founder of Informatica and SnapLogic (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Prior to Informatica, your work experience was with Unisys?

Gaurav Dhillon: That’s correct.

Sramana Mitra: Did you come up with the concept for Informatica while you were at Unisys?

Gaurav Dhillon: We wanted to break up into our own along this whole point server downsizing process. Believe it or not, the co-founders applied to the NIH for a grant of $75,000 to do research into how we could use object databases to do medical imaging. There is this program called Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) coordinated by Small Business Administration. I certainly feel that the SBIR program is an enlightened program because it’s meant to create young businesses. You have to apply as permanent residents. It’s sort of the granddaddy of incubators in some way. If you are able to go out and pursue that project, it’s yours. The thinking is you will possibly create a company and you will, possibly, create a job. We did. >>>

Building a Fashion Accessories Marketplace from London: Kiyan Foroughi, CEO of Boticca (Part 1)

I continue to be interested in how the fashion industry is slowly and surely finding innovative ways to leverage the Internet. Kiyan Foroughi has created a marketplace for fashion accessories that is scaling nicely and helping new designers find a customer base.

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

Kiyan Foroughi: I’m French-Iranian. I was born in Paris. My parents were immigrants from Iran. I grew up a little bit all over the place. I grew up in France, but I also spent a big part of my childhood in Dubai. We went out there because my father was an architect and he had >>>

Achieving Product-Market Fit That Allows You to Build Billion Dollar Unicorns: Gaurav Dhillon, Founder of Informatica and SnapLogic (Part 1)

Gaurav Dhillon founded Informatica, took it public, and ran it for 12 years before handing the reins over to Sohaib Abbasi, its current CEO. Five years ago, he founded SnapLogic, a company that has raised almost $60 million in venture capital and has tripled in revenue last year. Gaurav knows a thing or two about how to identify an opportunity, validate or invalidate it, and craft a product-market fit that has significant scaling potential in the world of enterprise software. Read Gaurav’s Entrepreneurial Journey.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? What’s the backstory of your entrepreneurial journey?

Gaurav Dhillon: I was born in northern India. I grew up in an industrial town, which is well-known as a light engineering producer.  >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: They allowed you to publish the results as well?

Morris Miller: They actually published it in the journal of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. It’s called ICHE. It was very well received and passed peer review. In March of 2011, when we really could begin selling in earnest, we had our prototypes. We sold our prototype devices. The market wanted them. I say it’s a prototype but it wasn’t really a prototype. Compared to what we have now, it looks like a prototype. It was at that point that we started developing our current germ-zapping robot. We launched that into the market in late 2012.

Interestingly, when we began selling these robots, hospitals would ask us, “What do you think we can expect in terms of reduction in infections?” We would say, “We really don’t know. Maybe 5% to 10%.” In our minds, maybe we could prevent 200,000 infections a year. We might be able to save 10,000 lives. Everybody would look at us and say, “That would be amazing.” >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Did you take some time off then?

Morris Miller: I did. I took a little time off. I realized that it isn’t consistent with what I wanted to do at all. Then we started looking at different kinds of deals. We invested in a medical startup. That was my first really big investment after that. It was a company called CardioSpectra. It had some interesting technology to help cardiologists figure out the correct treatment for patients with heart disease. Within 18 months, we ended up growing that company and selling it. It was a huge success. >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You funded these other founders who came up with the concept of Rackspace. That’s how you got involved with Rackspace?

Morris Miller: That’s how I got involved, yes.

Sramana Mitra: Did you actually take an operational role or were you just an investor in Rackspace?

Morris Miller: Part of their deal with me was we would coach them. It was written into the contract that we would help and support them. Every Tuesday afternoon, we’d meet them for lunch. We’ll be there just to solve problems with them because I have been through a lot of these things in the legal publishing business, so it was helpful to them and it was a lot of fun for me. What started off as a one-morning-a-week became a morning and an afternoon. Then it became morning and afternoon the next day. Finally, I moved my office above theirs because I really wanted them to have the joy of running the startup. >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: This is a time frame when the Internet is starting to happen. What happens next?

Morris Miller: For the year after the sale, you become an indentured service where you have to stay around because the acquirer wants to know that there’s going to be a complete transfer of knowledge. But they don’t want you interacting with the employees much because they want the employees to become loyal to the new owners. This guy on my advisory board  asked me what I want to do. I told him, “I’d like to work on some Internet related stuff.” >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 3)

Morris Miller: I got 168 No’s before I finally found an investor to say Yes. I would work Monday through Friday. I’d work the weekend. I’d work the next Monday through Friday and the next weekend. Then, I might take three days off and go to New York to pitch somebody. Back in 1992, the venture capital community existed but it was very small and they didn’t necessarily interact with a brand new entrepreneur the way your incubator is facilitating that now. That’s the amazing thing. Today, a guy like me could go to an incubator. Then they’d say, “Let’s spike the idea. Let’s get it going and see what kind of market reception there is.” Back then, you couldn’t do that. You literally had to go find individual angels step by step.

Sramana Mitra: How much did you raise?

Morris Miller: $1.25 million.

Sramana Mitra: From one angel?
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