As Series of Forbes Insights Profiles of Thought Leaders Changing the Business Landscape: Jaspreet Singh, Founder and CEO, Druva...
“Druva means North Star in Sanskrit,” says Jaspreet Singh, the young visionary behind the creation of his innovative storage management software company. Singh’s Druva seeks to be the guiding light in the endpoint data management space created out of the need to manage data at what Singh calls “the edge.” “The edge is where 28% of data resides outside of data centers on mobile devices and laptops, for example. 8% of devices holding corporate data are lost or broken every year—where does that data go?” asks Singh rhetorically.
His visionary concept centered on the narrowness of the market or the “edge” of where data resides. Previously, companies solved problems/challenges for data loss or leakage by building anti-virus or data security solutions, where the market needed an integrated solution for end-to-end "data governance" build on top of backup, data loss prevention, eDiscovery, etc.. Singh felt the big data center players did not understand mobility. He began thinking about how to create endpoint backup for enterprises and the idea for Druva was born. Now viewed as a pioneer in the space, Druva has recently secured nearly $25 million in Series C funding from Tenaya Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners (total funding to date is $42 million) and customers that now include the likes of NASA, Xerox, Tesla and others.
The core of the data center was already well defined by the big companies doing storage like IBM, EMC and Veritas. “The stuff you do at the edge was not clearly defined as a market, even though I saw it as a big challenge for companies,” says Singh. “Druva builds data protection and security while making sure that data is synchronizing back to the data center and that the data is well audited and encrypted and when we give the access to the data its use is authenticated. Data at the edge doubles every 14 months, and this governance becomes even more important. We have the experience to manage data. We are building a ‘Veritas' for the edge,” continues Singh.
Building data management systems and Veritas are two things for which Singh is singularly expert in. Working in India for Veritas, he was moving fast up the engineering ladder at one of the most successful backup software companies in the world. That is until he became 'painfully bored.' An entrepreneur at heart, he bootstrapped what is now Druva while defining the product, sales and marketing by twice hiring and firing his teams. “This was my third job and I was a young entrepreneur and I had to figure things out. I made mistakes, and course corrected. The right team building was probably the biggest learning” says Singh.
Jaspreet experienced first-time challenges as a new manager. “I had to learn it myself,” says Singh. The 31-year-old CEO founded Druva when he was just 26 in 2008 in India with his co-founder Milind Borate. Both worked for Veritas. “We were both building systems to manage large-scale data. We quit our jobs and did market research and found that people didn't trust so young a company with their core data storage. That led us to the idea of focusing on managing data at the endpoints. 80% of data duplicates at end-points. We would create a system that would use 90% less bandwidth. We bootstrapped the business for two years. Then we got a check for $120,000 from our first customer and the business became a reality,” says Singh. The business was initially funded through angel investors in India in 2009 and we then moved the company to the U.S when Sequoia funded us in 2010,” Singh continues.
The endpoint data management space is competitive and represents about a $1 billion market right now, but it’s still a fairly new space. “We don’t compete with the ‘old guys,’” is how Jaspreet refers to the big storage players like his previous employer. “In fact, we’re a good strategic partner with them, presenting complimenting solutions from core providers,” says Singh. The company has both a direct and Channel sales strategy. “We control the sales process tightly and have now started to scale out. We’ve done some integration deals with Fujitsu in Europe, for example,” Singh continues.
Jaspreet attributes his comparatively short journey from superstar developer to CEO of a fast-growing startup business to his upbringing. “My dad was in the air force in India. The family culture I grew up in was very entrepreneurial. I remember, I was studying abroad in Germany and my roommate and I built a food delivery service to meet the high demand for Indian food at the University,” says Singh. While the business only lasted as long as his studies in German, it did provide an “aha” moment for him that he really enjoyed the whole process of creating a business out of nothing and meeting customer demand. “I was a young coder. I founded Druva as a developer, but found out I was a fast learner and pretty good at people skills. We then decided that I would lead the company as CEO and completed my transition from developer to sales and marketing to CEO. Sales came naturally to me because I was passionate about the solutions we provided,” continues Singh.
The future for the company now seems clearly on track after it’s initially learning curve. “We’re experiencing 3X growth over the past couple of years,” says Singh. The company has 2,500 enterprise customers like Deloitte, PwC and Tesla and also works with medium-sized businesses through their presence in the US, UK, Germany and Scandinavia. In addition, the company is moving into Cloud data management. “We could easily do an IPO,” says Singh referring to his company’s growth and momentum.
“All good founders are good sellers. You’re always selling your idea. There’s no ‘Plan B’ for me,” concludes Singh.
Bruce H. Rogers is the co-author of the recently published book Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Service Firms Become Thought Leaders now available on Amazon http://amzn.to/OETmMz
