Ben Nye. Ben joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2004 and leads their infrastructure software team. Listen as Ben talks about how he became Turbonomic’s CEO and how they got to Series D.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs Book
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos

Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew about the power of equity”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:34 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
02:00 – Ben joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2004
02:15 – Capitalized Turbonomic as an investor in 2009 and first delivery of product in GA in 2010
02:30 – Joined the company full-time in 2013
02:40 – Bain Capital Ventures is a sector focus
- 02:55 – They want something with a prepared mind
- 03:17 – They cover multiple sectors
03:38 – Total capital raised
03:59 – Ben is the lead investor at Bain Capital Ventures for Turbonomic
04:17 – There was 3 CEO in Turbonomic
- 04:46 – There was an issue between the founder and the CEO that was hired
- 04:58 – The board made a decision, making Ben the CEO
06:15 – Passive equity in the company
- 06:22 – They kept the best people
- 06:42 – The company has to retire passive shares and it is covered by investors right agreement
- 07:00 – They have bought people’s equity, who left the company
07:15 – Turbonomic is a soft managing self-organizing control system
- 07:40 – They have the capability to provide enhance performance for high workloads
08:15 – They have on-premises and off- premises sectors
- 08:30 – In on-premises, there is per socket and per core based pricing
- 08:35 – In off-premises, there are no sockets so you work virtually in public cloud
08:55 – They are not SaaS, but users can purchase on term basis
- 09:20 – Some users request how to acquire the software
- 09:35 - They measure the environment based on sockets and core count
- 09:52 – 91% of the customers have a 3-month full payback
10:19 – Ben offers a scenario how the model works
11:34 – At Bain Capital Ventures, they research the companies and pick which they think will win
12:53 – The startups competing in the market
13:15 – In Turbonomic, there are 16,000 CIO who invested in them
13:28 – They have 400 employees
14:00 – Revenue growth in 2016
14:36 – In November of 2014, they did a $ 50 million series-d
15:35 – Going to series-d will depend on the nature of the company
- 15:41 – Ben’s company is an intellectual property strategy company
16:30 – Connect with Ben through his website and join Green Circle Community
18:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

People can voluntarily sell their equity when the leave a company.
Getting to series-d will depend on the nature of the company.
Know your market.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
Turbonomic.com – Ben’s website
Green Circle Community – Ben’s online community
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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