Featured Videos

Building a Pre-IPO Company Over 10 Years: Centrify CEO Tom Kemp (Part 2)

Sramana: I remember NetIQ very well, but a lot of my readers may not. Could you review the premise under which you founded NetIQ?

Tom Kemp: NetIQ was a systems management company around the Windows platform. At that time Microsoft had come out with Windows server and they were coming out with server applications such as Exchange and SQL Server. At NetIQ, we believed that those applications would become mission critical platforms. We felt that e-mail with Exchange would be very important and that people would be very upset if there was poor performance or if the product went down. >>>

Finding a Viable Monetization Model: wefi CEO Zur Feldman (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: You launched a product and you had to experience getting traction with 8 million users but there was no monetization from the consumer market. How long did it take you to go through that process of testing the market? How did the financing correlate with that period?

Zur Feldman: This is probably typical to any startup. Sometimes, you make mistakes or hit a wall and then you have to change direction. To answer your question, it took us about two years or so to realize that consumers may like what we do but they’re definitely not at a point where they will start paying money for this type of solution. Then, we tried to look for who are actually suffering and can actually value the service that we provide. That’s how we turned to a much tougher type of customer. We engaged with customers who realized that there is a true problem and the problem is not getting easier. It’s actually getting more complex and tougher as devices are penetrating and technology of devices are demanding more and more data. >>>

Building a Pre-IPO Company Over 10 Years: Centrify CEO Tom Kemp (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Tom Kemp founded Centrify in 2004 with a PowerPoint financing of $7 million. The company managed to survive the terrible recession of the late 2000 decade and is on its way to an IPO. Here, Tom discusses the highlights of his journey.

Sramana: Tom, to begin, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What is the genesis of your entrepreneurial journey?

Tom Kemp: I was born in Chicago. I grew up in Michigan and I went to the University of Michigan. Right after college, I decided to head to Silicon Valley. I started my career at Oracle and from there, it has been a series of startups. My first startup went okay and I learned a lot. After that, I did another startup called NetIQ, which went great and we went public. I was with that company for eight years and we got to $250 million in sales with a billion dollar market cap. >>>

Finding a Viable Monetization Model: wefi CEO Zur Feldman (Part 5)

Zur Feldman: We are working with big cable companies to understand how they can influence the experience of the customer. When they see the map of connectivity, they want to improve the connectivity experience in between the different technology that they’re dealing with. It’s not only sensitive to WiFi but also to different technologies from different carriers. The central point is it’s from the point of view of the device or the customer, not necessarily from the network of providers.

Sramana Mitra: How do you go to market? Were you selling to companies who have WiFi networks?

>>>

Scaling a Pre-IPO Enterprise Software Company: Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux (Part 7)

Sramana: The IPO window is open now. You know the cycles we have gone through. Are you looking at an IPO?

Fred Laluyaux: Yes, we are. We are going to have to. I am not a big fan of running a public company but we are an enterprise platform for some of the largest companies in the world. If you are a point solution, nobody cares, but we are a platform running mission critical processes. The Fortune 500 companies are replacing SAP and Oracle with Anaplan. They need to see that we are not going to be sold the next day. This is one of the main drivers for us. When you become a platform for those large companies, you have to show that you are playing the game the way they expect you to. >>>

Finding a Viable Monetization Model: wefi CEO Zur Feldman (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: There was a group of young founders who started wefi and you stepped in as the CEO?

Zur Feldman: They did not really get along because of the differences in their views. Each one had his own imagination on how it needs to be. They were looking for someone who can actually meld it all together and create one vision that can shape up this company.

Sramana Mitra: Pitango funded the company. You came in as CEO. What was the minimum viable product that you launched with?

>>>

Scaling a Pre-IPO Enterprise Software Company: Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux (Part 6)

Sramana: You have talked about your land and expand model. How does that play out in the sales process?

Fred Laluyaux: Finally, we are looking to build the community of users. We are looking to build a community of system administrators. We have an opportunity to build great community amongst business analysts. Business analysts build models and they are proud of their work. They want to share their models with their peers. Our goal is to enable that. >>>

Finding a Viable Monetization Model: wefi CEO Zur Feldman (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How does the story of wefi begin? Were you incubating this company inside of your venture firm, Pitango?

Zur Feldman: Yes. Pitango was a seed investor in this company. This company actually started in late 2006 before the first iPhone came out in 2007. The premise was that the devices that were starting to build will create an enormous demand on bandwidth and the supply will become a scarce resource. Technology that was assessed at that time showed that the infrastructure wouldn’t be able to provide adequate coverage and respond to the enormous data demand. Technology for connectivity, at that time, was not really available in almost any of the mobile devices with the exception of a few laptops. We only had WiFi then.

>>>