Want to Build a 100MM Software Company? Read On…

September 22, 2011

For those of you who follow OpenView you know we are a Boston-based Venture capital firm that invests growth capital in expansion stage software companies. We are an operationally focused team who have all been to the movie before when it comes to building great software companies. Our belief is it is not about the venture capital a founder or CEO raises, but how they use that capital to build and scale their management team and business model. At OpenView and OpenView Labs,we spend every day working with the CEO’s, founders and management teams of our portfolio companies accomplish this.

It is my belief that the truly successful companies in the software industry or any industry for that matter (Think GE, Coke, etc.) win and dominate their markets through operational execution. We recently sat down and interviewed Bill Conroy, the former CEO and President of Initiate systems. I have known Bill for over 20 years starting in 1990 when I met him at Oracle, Dallas. I promoted and moved him and his family to Chicago to back fill my position when I stepped up to manage the Oracle Central Group which was one third of the company’s commercial business at that time.

I have remained a close friend with Bill and have enjoyed watching him progress in his career as an operationally-focused software executive culminating in his successful leadership of Initiate Systems for eight years, leading to a strategic exit when the company was acquired by IBM in March 2010.

For real advice from a truly successful software CEO on how to build a 100MM software company and achieve a strategic exit that any CEO or founder could be proud of,  check out the full interview with Bill.

 

Venture Partner

<strong>George Roberts</strong> is a Venture Partner at OpenView. He enjoys partnering with companies and helping them achieve their goals through strategy, focus and operational execution. From 1990 to 2003, George spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, most recently having served as Executive Vice President of North American Sales. While at Oracle, George was responsible for over $1 billion in revenue and more than 2,000 employees, reporting directly to the company’s CEO and Chairman, Larry Ellison.