Solo Student Entrepreneur to $5M: David Liu, CEO of Deltapath (Part 1)

David started Deltapath as a college student. Another case in point is that solo entrepreneurs CAN build sustainable, profitable businesses.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

David Liu: I was born in San Jose, California. I had a really interesting childhood. My parents moved overseas to Hong Kong as my dad had a career opportunity. The whole family moved when I was still in elementary. I was thrown into a completely different world. I didn’t really speak Chinese. I cannot read or write Chinese.

When I was writing the admission test, they were asking me to write my name in Chinese and I completely failed. From my childhood days, it was a good shock that made me adaptive. We moved around a lot and I had to change schools and make new friends.

Sramana Mitra: I have friends who have gone through this kind of experience of moving all throughout their childhood. It’s very unsettling. You have to develop skills of quickly establishing relationships with people.

David Liu: Exactly. That paved the way in shaping who I am and being able to be an entrepreneur later down the road. That was an important aspect of my childhood days. I studied at Santa Clara University just around the corner here. During those days, my parents were still in Hong Kong. I had to figure out a way to call them for free. This was back when the internet had just started.

Sramana Mitra: Mid-90s?

David Liu: 2001 – right after the dot-com crash. I wanted a way to call for free. That started me on a journey of investigating, researching, and building stuff surrounding VoIP. I successfully built a prototype that I used to call my friends and my mom. Once I got it to work, people wanted to buy it. I thought to myself that this is a great opportunity. I sold it to businesses.

The majority of the companies in Hong Kong have factories and offices in China. Their IDD bills were $5,000 to $10,000. Having the ability to make unlimited free calls makes sense for these companies. I started a company while in school. I wanted to graduate earlier, so I overloaded every quarter. It was the highest stress level.

Sramana Mitra: What year did you finish?

David Liu: I graduated in early 2004.

Sramana Mitra: The company was already in swing at this point. Did you have customers?

David Liu: Yes, we already had a couple of customers.

Sramana Mitra: Was it just you?

David Liu: I tried to invite friends and people that I know, especially hardcore programmers. They all told me that my stuff is way too difficult. They weren’t ready to join.

Sramana Mitra: So it was just you.

David Liu: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: You basically put together software and you sold that to clients in Hong Kong?

David Liu: Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Solo Student Entrepreneur to $5M: David Liu, CEO of Deltapath
1 2 3 4 5