From Hardcore Techie to Unicorn Entrepreneur: Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix (Part 6 )

Sramana Mitra: Did you do shareholder communication?

Dheeraj Pandey: All the time. I like it. There was a thesis to be sold as well. After we went public is when we started to transition the business model. It probably was the biggest business model transition the IT world has ever seen – going from hardware, to software, to subscription in three years. Communication is not something you can shy away from in these things.

Sramana Mitra: Why did you join the Adobe board?

Dheeraj Pandey: They were the original PLU company. If you go back to box sellers of selling boxes through channels, the big transformation for Adobe was going from that to being digital. They and Intuit were the first. They’re also constantly evolving. They have a good mix of enterprise and consumer.

Sramana Mitra: You have now switched back to an entrepreneur role. If you want to raise money from outside, you will have no problem. This is a successful serial entrepreneur journey. How do you maintain discipline in a scenario like that?

Dheeraj Pandey: I was reading the book Innovation Stack two weeks ago. Even after Twitter, people were not giving enough value to Jack’s new idea. They were going after this massive headwind of Visa and Mastercard. Just because he did Twitter doesn’t mean people give you the benefit of doubt. The first $10 million is one thing. That groundedness drives the paranoia, waking up everyday and knowing that the market is all-powerful. You can’t buy your way into the market. The end-user is paramount.

Sramana Mitra: You have preserved that humility. Not everyone does.

Dheeraj Pandey: I’m a big fan of Simon Sinek. I feel like I’ve barely begun. I turned 45 in 2020. I have 15 to 20 years to give to this industry. The best is ahead of me. That means that the best learning curve is ahead of me.

Sramana Mitra: What is the elevator pitch of DevRev?

Dheeraj Pandey: It’s bringing developers closer to customers and end users through real-time communication and managing their work.

Sramana Mitra: You’re not working with customers yet?

Dheeraj Pandey: We are. We are our own customers. We have to first like what we do and have a sense of pride in what we’re building. Starting April to October, we have a whole slew of customers planned. We are planning on onboarding them.

Sramana Mitra: Who is the ideal customer?

Dheeraj Pandey: SaaS companies. Anybody who distributes code to the cloud. SaaS merchants. Smaller teams and midsized teams who are suffering from too many tools. None of the tools connect with each other.

Sramana Mitra: Is Slack going to be a competitor?

Dheeraj Pandey: No, we are learning from them. Right now, people look at systems work as boring things. Then systems engagements are cool things where the cool kids hang out. We need to blur the lines with these. In many ways, we will be partnering with them. We are building very elegant workflows.

Sramana Mitra: You like product.

Dheeraj Pandey: At the end of the day, products are where concepts become reality.

Sramana Mitra: It was a pleasure talking with you.

This segment is part 6 in the series : From Hardcore Techie to Unicorn Entrepreneur: Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix
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