From Hard Core Techie to Successful Entrepreneur: Francis Dinha, CEO of OpenVPN (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What did you do in your first venture?

Francis Dinha: I gave Ericsson three months’ notice. I was going to build something related to switching while doing everything in software. That was my first venture where I made my first million dollars.

Sramana Mitra: Who was the customer?

Francis Dinha: Ericsson. It was too early. I came to this country when I was 30 years old. In 10 years, I was 40 and made $1.7 million. It was mostly consulting and providing services. I used that money to start my second venture called PacketStream. PacketStream is related to Quality of Service (QoS). I was very interested in the internet and IP. I still have a patent related to QoS as well. It’s called Synchronous Packet Switching.

I said, “What about if we emulate the same circuits? We can provide different levels of QoS.” That’s when I started raising money. That was early 1999 before dotcom crash. We got caught in the middle. We had customers, but then we built hardware. We had to close the venture.

Prior to OpenVPN, I was involved with the Iraqi project – Future of Iraq. I was part of the economy and infrastructure team there. That wasn’t for me. There were some interesting projects that I ran there but I wanted to start something. That was 2005.

Initially, it wasn’t even OpenVPN; it was the virtualization of the network. I was looking at the concept of virtualizing the network. I didn’t want to deal with the hardware. I wanted to do it in such a way that I can use the software to virtualize the network. The companies I talked to said, “That doesn’t exist at all.” That’s when the bootstrapping came in. Then when I met James, he was playing with this open-source OpenVPN. I wanted to use that software, but it wasn’t complete.

Sramana Mitra: Who’s James?

Francis Dinha: He’s the co-founder of OpenVPN. He’s more on the business and network side. I hired him as a consultant initially. Then the open source started taking off. I had to build a model around it.

Sramana Mitra: Your background is in computer engineering and telecom. How did you switch from being a hardcore techie to being a business person?

Francis Dinha: I didn’t go back to school to get my MBA.

Sramana Mitra: I don’t think getting an MBA helps actually.

Francis Dinha: One of the experiences I had at Ericsson was, I had to deal with so many technologies. At the same time, I had to deal with the business. I was very interested in how you can scale a business. I had to learn it the hard way. When I joined DSP, I saw how the company was starting and what mistakes they are doing.

Sramana Mitra: You were paying attention in your various jobs.

Francis Dinha: Absolutely. Also, I was good at reading the market. I was always thinking ahead.

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to push back on that. Beating the market too far ahead in time doesn’t help you build very effective businesses. I have that tendency too. You have to hit the timing right.

Francis Dinha: That’s correct. We had to bootstrap this to look at the low-hanging fruits. We can’t just reach too far.

This segment is part 2 in the series : From Hard Core Techie to Successful Entrepreneur: Francis Dinha, CEO of OpenVPN
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