Flying Through Turbulent Skies: Joel Thomas, CEO of Stratos Jets (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship with your dad.

Joel Thomas: He’s been great and amazing to my mom. He’s my stepdad, but he’s been a part of my whole life. He has invested so much emotionally in all of us in helping all of us realize our purpose.

My older brother Chris graduated from Princeton Cum Laude because my dad encouraged him. My brother Jonathan and I were very similar. I really looked up to him. Jon did really well in finance. My little sister is in real estate. He’s been a great blessing in our lives.

Flying Through Turbulent Skies: Joel Thomas, CEO of Stratos Jets (Part 5)

Joel Thomas: On January 6 of 2014, when I showed up at work, there were resignation letters. Everybody had quit and gone to work at another company. It was really challenging. I had just gotten engaged a year before.

To wake up on my birthday and not have anybody at the company was scary. I had invested in a large office space at the airport. I was left with two sales people and myself, Garrett, and Terry. They weren’t friends from before.

A Serial “Data” Entrepreneur’s Journey: Bassel Ojjeh, CEO of LigaData (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What year did this restructuring happen?

Bassel Ojjeh: This was in 2014. 

Sramana Mitra: LigaData really comes together in 2014. What happens next?

Bassel Ojjeh: My biggest focus continues to be profitability. Last year, I was reading something when it struck me, “You want the freedom to innovate and you need to be profitable to be free.” That combination is really important.

Flying Through Turbulent Skies: Joel Thomas, CEO of Stratos Jets (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: As long as it works, it’s great. When it doesn’t work, it’s problematic. 

Joel Thomas: It did work till 2014. Everybody was doing really well. We were leaders in our industry. Because of the volume of business that we were doing, I was invited to join this organization called Air Charter Association of North America, which is an invite-only organization.

A Serial “Data” Entrepreneur’s Journey: Bassel Ojjeh, CEO of LigaData (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What happens next?

Bassel Ojjeh: We got our first few customers. We wanted to counter what the software industry is used to. We went open source. The goal was ubiquity. What we found out fairly quickly is, if you’re selling to traditional companies, they’re not used to buying open source software. It became counter-intuitive to them.

Flying Through Turbulent Skies: Joel Thomas, CEO of Stratos Jets (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What’s the next major milestone after October 2008?

Joel Thomas: I had invested every dollar back into this marketing idea. There were two strategies. I believe in web-based marketing. That was a good strategy because of my experience of running this political organization at UCF.

A Serial “Data” Entrepreneur’s Journey: Bassel Ojjeh, CEO of LigaData (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Who were buying at this point when you were doing this company in the early 2000s?

Bassel Ojjeh: I left Yahoo in 2009 and started what I just mentioned to you. That was from 2009 to 2010 onwards. Financial industry, banking, and mobile operators were buying at this point.

Flying Through Turbulent Skies: Joel Thomas, CEO of Stratos Jets (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Talk about the next few strategic steps of how you put one foot before the other.

Joel Thomas: When I tried to incorporate, we didn’t have a merchant processor. If you’re working locally with people, it’s easy enough to get a wire. People who utilize our service are called unscheduled, on-demand air transport. People need this service last minute.