It's time...

One of the hardest parts of the startup process is finding a way to distill all the ideas in your head into a clear, concise, statement that anyone can understand. I've spent several weeks now trying to do this and this is where I'm at right now:

Software as a service that actually makes data easy for companies.

It's clear and concise but I don't think it really drives home how transformational this could be. This statement will probably change, but for now it's a reasonable starting point.

There's a phrase I've heard recently "all companies are now tech companies". I think the real truth is that all companies are now data companies.

Companies struggle with data -- data is hard. I've witnessed companies become aware of the importance of their data but then struggle to actually use it effectively. They throw incredible amounts of time, money, and sweat at this particular problem. Even with full teams and substantial resources solutions seem to be incomplete, lagging the needs of the business, and full of compromises.

My career has led me to this point. I was watching the Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford again recently and one of his stories resonated with me:

Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

Looking backwards, it clicked. I realized that my dots connect. My dots connect to this idea. I need to build it. My time building parallel processing computers. My time building enterprise storage devices. My time building web applications and starting two companies (one very data centric). My time working at a growth company that IPOd as head of architecture. It all connects.

It's time...