This week I talk with Khash Sajadi, Founder of Cloud66! In this episode we talk about growing up in Iran, how hobby electronics became a conduit for building software, selling software as a teenager to realtors and dentists, learning the value of unit economics, the importance of scheduling your day and more!
Show Notes
- 1:00- Growing up in Iran
- 3:00- Getting into log analysis
- 3:55- An international market and the problem with sanctions
- 5:22- Getting into computers
- 8:45- Transitioning to software from hardware
- 12:03- “I’m actually good at this computer thing, so I’m just going to put all my energy into this”
- 12:45- When business and entrepreneurship came into the picture
- 14:40- Writing and selling computer programs
- 19:00- Moving to Europe
- 20:29- A big lesson
- 21:27- The hay-day of being a computer programmer
- 22:04- Getting the itch to build something yourself
- 24:00- Being a product person and not enjoying the sales/marketing side of things
- 26:26- Starting an official company
- 30:17- “The money that was coming in wasn’t enough to be worth it.”
- 31:57- Starting a social search engine
- 34:03- Realizations
- 36:12- Running out of money
- 37:42- Recovering
- 38:14- Leaving banking and thinking about personal values
- 41:38- Moving to San Francisco
- 42:18- The idea for Cloud66
- 47:29- Changing the business model
- 49:05- Figuring out the economics for Cloud66- Learning from others’ mistakes
- 51:22- Focusing on the business side of things to stay sustainable and not getting distracted by “the next shiny tool”
- 53:23- The intriguing part about building and creating something
- 55:02- Balancing building things and running a company
- 55:57- “What is my job as the CEO?”
- 57:10- Letting the calendar run your life- blocking off times just to think
- 58:30- The next year for Cloud66
- 59:36- Investing heavily in containerization technology
- 1:02:30- “Companies do die, but engineers don’t”
- 1:04:56- The benefit of selling tools to engineers