Mar 3, 2014 · 21m · mad
Tasso Argyros, Aster Data // Data Driven NYC 24 // February 2014 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
At Data Driven NYC, Aster Data co-founder Tasso Argyros shares the inside story of building, positioning, and scaling his big data startup to a successful acquisition by Teradata. He delivers actionable entrepreneurial advice on finding product-market fit, navigating market timing, and making critical early team decisions.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 3.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Matt as informed peer 0.1 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 1.0 Matt pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 20:35 Defending product-market fit metric
Tasso firmly counters the audience question, arguing that even a top VP of sales cannot succeed without true product-market fit.
Hardest push from Matt ▶ 20:10 Audience pushback on sales failure assumptionsAudience member Steven Benario directly challenges Tasso's core premise that founder involvement in sales indicates a lack of product-market fit.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:30 Educational breakdown of product-market fitTasso breaks down why sales and engineering teams independently fail to achieve product-market fit without founder-level cross-disciplinary synthesis.
Matt holds his own ▶ 19:54 Host enforcing event timetable limitsMatt Turck reasserts control over the session timeline by restricting Q&A to a single quick question.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Matt as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Matt pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tasso Argyros Personal Background and Overview | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Tasso delivers a monologue introducing his background at Stanford and Aster Data's company arc. The host is entirely absent during this talk. | |
| Aster SNAP Architecture and Multi-Engine Integration | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Tasso explains Aster Data's MPP architecture and SQL MapReduce innovation from their 2009 VLDB paper. Host does not participate. | |
| Bootstrapping and Operating on a Frugal Budget | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Tasso shares anecdotes about frugal early days, early customer introductions, and investor interactions. Host provides no input. | |
| Defining and Achieving Product-Market Fit | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Tasso outlines the definition of product-market fit and explains why achieving it is strictly a founder's responsibility. The host is silent. | |
| Positioning Strategy and Refusing Category Labels | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | Tasso discusses positioning hurdles and refusing to label Aster Data as just another data warehouse. Host is non-interactive. | |
| Evolution to 'Big Data' Positioning and Market Success | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Tasso describes adopting the Big Data umbrella term early in 2009 to establish vision leadership. Host remains off-stage. | |
| Strategic Acquisition by Teradata in April 2011 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Tasso reflects on why they sold to Teradata in 2011 to compete against massive big data budgets. Host is inactive. | |
| Audience Q&A and Event Conclusion | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Matt Turck opens brief Q&A before an audience member challenges Tasso on founder-led sales metrics, prompting a clear reframing from Tasso. |
Statements from this episode (13)
Tasso Argyros: Aster Data sold to Teradata in 2011
“We sold the company to Teradata in 2011, and then I ran the company as a division with my co-founder, ah, for a couple of years.”
Tasso Argyros: Aster Data began developing its architecture in 2005
“We were thinking about this problem back in 2005, right? So that was pre-Hadoop”
MySpace was a major early customer for Aster Data
“Right media never became our customer. And that's a different story, but MySpace did become a very big customer of ours.”
MySpace in 2007 enjoyed the market dominance Facebook has today
“That was back in 2007 where MySpace, you know, had kind of was at the height where probably Facebook is today.”
Founders must quickly replace misaligned early advisors, investors, and employees
“You know, in, back then we didn't think about it, but in retrospect, that first asset of everything is so critical, so that if it's not aligned with your vision, it's not aligned with the company's vision where you want to go, you really need to make a change …”
Product-market fit requires an unmet need that can sustain $50M+ revenue
“Product market fit means you have identified a unique, an unmet customer need, That's large enough to sustain your company, right, at least take it to 50 or hundred million dollars, and you have a product that can repeatedly and productively solve to satisfy t…”
Aster Data was among the first companies to position around "Big Data"
“Aster was one of the first companies that you, that we used it as our major positioning statement, and I do believe we had the first big data event. Although I may be wrong, but nobody has, ah, nobody has, ah, told me otherwise so far.”
The term "Big Data" has lost its strategic marketing effectiveness
“We use Big Data a lot less because Big Data has lost a lot of the benefit it had for us back in 2009.”
Aster Data had around 100 employees in 2010 prior to acquisition
“When big data happened in 2010, we had maybe, you know, about a hundred employees”
Aster Data needed a major partner to fulfill its product vision
“And we realized that the only way to realize what the product and the company, ah, the vision, what it could offer was to align with the major player.”
Tasso Argyros's Stanford advisor was the first investor in Google
“My advisor at Stanford was the first investor at Google, right?”
Technology and team are a founder's only insurance against market timing
“Timing matters, and you cannot control timing as an entrepreneur. The only thing you can control is your technology and your team, right? If you have a truly solid technology, and if you have a truly solid team, is the only insurance you can ever have against …”
A great VP of Sales cannot save a startup without product-market fit
“Even with the best VP of sales, if you don't have product market fit, you won't be able to be successful. And that's why you first have to find this and then invest in finding that amazing sales guy that you think can take your product to tens or hundreds of m…”