Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Neil Vaswani, CEO of Corestream (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Besides the roughly $2 million you raised, did you raise any other funding?

Neil Vaswani: We had some angel funding throughout the way at different points.

Sramana Mitra: What is the total amount of money that you’ve raised?

Neil Vaswani: Probably around $3 million or so.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of revenue run rate are you at? What would you finish 2018 at?

Neil Vaswani: I don’t know if I can disclose that but I can tell you that we’re right around $10 millon.

Sramana Mitra: You’ve done a very capital efficient execution. $3 million and already $10 million annual run rate. What else do you want to share with the audience that is significant from your story in terms of what you’ve done strategically to get here?

Neil Vaswani: The two big mistakes I made was whale hunting and trying to disrupt the existing distribution. That was a lesson learned. If I were to do it again, I’d pay more attention to understanding what the existing distribution looked like before I try to disrupt it. I would have probably started with the smaller market as opposed to the larger ones.

Throughout my journey, I’ve realized that humility is important. I’ve never felt like I’m successful. I don’t feel that today. It keeps me pushing to the next level and also being open to learning along the way. When I put on the CEO hat at 27, I felt like I had to know everything. When people came to me, I felt like I had to be a know-it-all. It’s exactly what you shouldn’t do. As I’ve evolved and grown as a leader, I’ve learned to be more humble about my shortcomings, strengths, and weakness and scaffold myself with people around me.

Sramana Mitra: That’s refreshing because there’s so much ego in our industry as I’m sure you’re aware.

Neil Vaswani: I think it’s important because how else will you learn and take in the feedback from people around you? I spend a lot of time in my organization trying to build a culture around that so people can collaborate around that. The other thing is, how do you create value with everyone that touches your organization? That’s the key thing to great success.

Sometimes it may take longer because you may not necessarily max out margins on any one given deal, but by sharing and creating value for every constituent that touches the platform, you can scale at the end of the day. You can distribute that message widely and virally. We’ve had that philosophy, and it has helped us get to where we are. When you look at startups and entrepreneurs, they’re often looking to disrupt through disintermediation.

I’ve learned the hard way because I failed. You can disrupt by creating value by complementing an existing industry and keeping the incumbents intact. There’s a little bit of give there but you can create value and create more oxygen in the room. Those are where the best companies end up.

Sramana Mitra: It may also be a good thing to think more collaboration than disruption. People have such abrasive attitudes instead of being more collaborative. The net value would be a lot higher. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Neil Vaswani, CEO of Corestream
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