Do You Want To Have Dinner With The Guy You Want To Hire? Christos Cotsakos, Founder Of ETrade And CEO Of EndPlay (Part 7)

Sramana: I don’t think the startup CEO job has changed. It is a demanding, high-focus job.

Christos Cotsakos: I am one of those guys who does not sleep more than five hours a night anyways. I like to be engaged. I have a high level of intellectual curiosity. If you want to have a hand in how things work, you can either guide it or you can run it. In this case the two came together.

Sramana: In most cases, those who guide entrepreneurs are in a parallel mode. Those who go back to a single, focused CEO role after doing a lot of parallel entrepreneurship roles don’t find the singular entrepreneurship role to be engaging enough.

Christos Cotsakos: I think that individuals form different patterns throughout their lives. You keep learning from what you have previously done. It creates a more interesting environment if you do multiple things in your career that let you self-actualize and help other people to reach their dreams.

Sramana: I have done three startups as a founder and CEO throughout the 1990s. After the market crashed, I spent 10 years doing consulting. I needed that for variety of perspective. I loved it. Today I have come back to the founder and CEO role, and I am happy in it, but I made a conscious switch back. 

Christos Cotsakos: My answer is that it is part of your DNA. I think that is the same for me as well.

Sramana: It may be. That is why I was observing, and to some extent resonating, your career path.

Christos Cotsakos: Let’s face it, it is great running things. You get to build it and form relationships. You get the highs and lows of what goes well or does not go well. You get to put your neck on the line. It is part of the DNA of who you are. You keep looking for character-defining moments in your life that engage you and stretch you beyond who you can be. That is a wonderful way to strive to make a difference in your life and the lives of those around you.

Sramana: How do you believe that EndPlay is going to change the world?

Christos Cotsakos: I don’t know that it will change the world, but what I think it has the potential to be able to provide unstructured information in a more meaningful way that allows publishers to get their information out. Most of society is a publisher today, and that is important. We can then let publishers see how consumers use their information in the marketplace.

There are gadgets and machines. Gadgets get the press. Machines are internal workings. EndPlay is a machine. It makes things work more efficiently and that will impact people on a grander scale, yet we are behind the curtain.

Sramana: What growth rate are you experiencing?

Christos Cotsakos: We are at $11.5 million in revenue, and we are experiencing 70% growth rate per year.

Sramana: How much venture capital have you raised so far and from what types of investors?

Christos Cotsakos: We have raised $12 million. The additional investor was News Corp and the Fox Entertainment Group, which owns 20% of the company and are long-term investors. The others are VPVP out of Redwood City, and that is Tom Bevilacqua. Tom and I started Arrowpath Ventures by raising $350 million back in 1999. We have always worked on things together. When we talked about what I was doing, we came to the conclusion that this would be a natural deal for us to work on. Steve Baloff of Advanced Technology Ventures is the third piece, and he really understands the SaaS marketplace.

The three of us have great chemistry. We all believe in this space and know it is a long-term investment. Everyone gets the model. Our Series B round brought in another media round, which is LIN Media. They fit in with the same model that we were looking for. They know the space. Of all the investors we brought in, I would bring them all to my house to dinner.

Sramana: Essentially, you built your investors based on media expertise, SaaS expertise, and personal relationships over time.

Christos Cotsakos: Absolutely. It works out very well. Unlike some board meetings, ours are all about how to build a great product that can innovate in the marketplace.

Sramana: Thank you for taking the time to discuss your career and future plans. I look forward to following your success.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Do You Want To Have Dinner With The Guy You Want To Hire? Christos Cotsakos, Founder Of ETrade And CEO Of EndPlay
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