Kerrest: Successful Enterprise Software Founders Are Industry Veterans, Not 20-Somethings
Frederic Kerrest · 20VC: Okta Founder Frederic Kerrest on Why You Want To Be A Monopolist In A Small Market, The Biggest Challenges in Scaling Okta To IPO and Being a16z's First Ever Fund Check · May 3, 2019 · at 10:37
Frederic Kerrest, co-founder and COO of Okta, discusses founder-market fit in enterprise software, citing examples like Salesforce, Workday, and ServiceNow.
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“I think if you look at successful enterprise software founders, whether it was Mark Benioff and Parker Harris, Salesforce, or whether it was Anil Bushri, And Dave Duffield at Workday or whether it was Fred Luddy at ServiceNow, these are all folks who did not start as twenty-somethings out of college with an idea. These are folks who'd seen how businesses work, who'd seen the opportunities to improve the processes, the systems that were happening, and who'd seen a way to move all these companies forward.”
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More from Frederic Kerrest
Kerrest: Exceptional Founders Are Constrained Without Large, Growing Markets
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“What he's looking for, and I agree with, is you want to become a monopolist in a small market with a lot of adjacencies.”
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“I think if you look at the data says that solo founders always have a tougher time. I think you really see a lot of success in the two through four group of co-founders. I think once you get five co-founders or more, there's just too many cooks in the kitchen.”
Okta was Andreessen Horowitz's first fund investment check in 2009
“We were the first check that they wrote out of their first fund. In the summer of 2009 was into our seed round, and then obviously they led our series A in 2010.”
Okta pivoted from small businesses to mid-market and enterprise in 2011
“We went from focusing on small, medium businesses to focusing more on mid-market companies and a little bit upscale because those companies, A, had more pain, B, they had more budget, and C, they were looking for solutions like the ones we had”
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