Building an IPO-Ready Identity Software Company from Colorado: Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What happened to the Jabber project?

Andre Durand: Jabber continued on even in my absence. I left in 2002 to start Ping.

Sramana Mitra: When you left to sail around with your friend and wife, you quit Jabber?

Andre Durand: No, I just took a sabbatical. I just said, “I’ve been at this for 10 years. My childhood friend is now sitting on the boat that we dreamed about when we were 14. I’m going to go spend some time with him.” I was just literally taking a few months off. I planned to come back in January.

Sramana Mitra: While on the boat, what struck you? What was the genesis of the the Ping idea?

Andre Durand: I don’t know if you’ve ever spent any time on a sailboat. It’s a very glamorous visual.

Sramana Mitra: I have and I agree with you, but I’m terribly seasick. I hate sailboats.

Andre Durand: That’s my wife’s experience. My experience being on the sailboat is a lot of excitement when you pull the anchor and a lot of fear and terror because when the boat is unanchored and moving, anything could happen, and is followed by weeks of boredom. It’s a little bit of a floating jail cell where you have to fill a lot of hours when you’re just anchored off of an island, so I started blogging.

It was 2001. I had a laptop. I would type up my blog, put it on a floppy, rent a bicycle, take it to a coffee shop, and upload it. My first few blog posts were essentially observations on networking or computing that were quasi-business ideas. The first one actually was the equivalent of what FindMyiPhone has become where I said, “If devices have no utility off the network., then in the future, once the device hits the network, you can shut if off so people can’t use it.

I wrote two or three other blog posts and I remember waking up on the third day and saying, “What am I going to write about?” Something was nagging me about those prior blog posts. I said, “Something fundamental and universal is missing.” That was my aha moment. None of these ideas can happen if we don’t have a fundamental notion of who the user is on the Internet.

Sramana Mitra: What architecture were you envisioning and what was the lay of the land vis-a-vis identity at that point? We are talking 2001?

Andre Durand: January of 2002. The next morning, I told my friend that I’m going to build an identity server. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t come from a background in identity of security. Long story short, I said, “I probably should get back home sooner than I planned and if I raise the money to start the company, I’ll start the company. If I don’t raise the money, I’ll go back to Jabber.” I left six weeks early.

Sramana Mitra: You came back to Denver?

Andre Durand: Yes. I wrote this very short business plan that talked about knowing the users on the Internet. I went to the one person who I thought would understand. This is a gentleman I used to compete with in the bulletin board industry who lived in Denver and who I became close to over the years. I remember going to his apartment and talking about this idea and sharing the business plan. He looked at me and said, “Andre, are you committed?”

He sat down and wrote a $50,000 check. That was the first check that I raised. I ended up raising half a million to start. One of my first investors who had made some money on my first company looked at me and said, “How much more do you need?” I said, “A quarter million.” That was the money to start paying.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building an IPO-Ready Identity Software Company from Colorado: Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity
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