Scaling a Technology Company Against Major Competitors: Solix CEO Sai Gundavelli (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What’s the killer app for what you were offering? Where did you find traction in the enterprise? What part of the enterprise was looking for this kind of enhanced search capabilities?

Sai Gundavelli: That’s a good question. A lot of enterprises had implemented Oracle applications, using which their data started to grow and their backups were taking a longer time. Planning for disaster recovery was also becoming tougher. Oracle also charges based on the CPU utilization. If the company has got 10 years of data and if they’re processing it, they obviously need more CPU. The more CPU you have, the more software licenses you pay. You’re still processing data from 10 years back and you’re still putting the entire data set on the same storage. Our killer app helps archive the data. You put all your active and usable items in the living room. The items that you don’t use that frequently, you put in the garage. That was the value proposition. That’s how we built the technology in terms of how to optimize their application data.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of customers, what kind of customers did you find early traction with?

Sai Gundavelli: These are enterprises that are using Oracle or Peoplesoft. We started more on the critical applications in the enterprise. ERPs are the ones that got us initial traction.

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a little about how you got this company off the ground in terms of funding? How did it evolve?

Sai Gundavelli: We first had this idea. We then spoke to a few customers. There’s one company that liked the idea and said, “Show me that you can make it work.” We got the customer to use the product. We were writing articles. Why you need it? Why it improves the backup? We got the initial set of customers through that.

Another thing that happened was, there were two other players in the same space. Both of them got funded. Their marketing also helped us. Of course, they were VC funded. I have taken some VC funding in one of my other company. I didn’t like the outcome. This time, I decided not to take any VC. I put my own funds. I put some angel funds. That’s how I built up this company.

Sramana Mitra: In the very beginning, it was your own fund that helped you develop the product and get the early customers in?

Sai Gundavelli: Yes.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Scaling a Technology Company Against Major Competitors: Solix CEO Sai Gundavelli
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