“Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley
What
Presentation for FastForward
When
April 11, 2012
Who
Gleb Budman @glebbudman Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
�
My Story Startups
Outcome
Selling holiday cards door-to-door
Made $20
Cheap Cars – used car dealership
Shut down; lost money
AttackPost – bike components
Designed; never launched
NetRelevance – browser-enabled search
Great business plan; no engineers.
Kendara – browser-enabled search
Had engineers…acquired by Excite@Home
MailFrontier – anti-spam/email security
Acquired by SonicWALL
Backblaze – online backup
Bootstrapped. Profitable. Growing quickly.
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
How To Start a Company
VS
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Lean Startup
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Keep It Safe & Standard
• • •
Delaware C-Corp
• •
Stock: 4 year vest / 1 year cliff
Don’t work on another company’s dime Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment (PIIA)
Decide stock ownership up front
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Funding Approaches
Resources
• •Friends & Family •Incubators •Angels (individual/group) •VCs •…Customers??
•Angel List •Venture Hacks •www.TheFunded.com •www.AVC.com •www.feld.com
Self Fund
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
News Sources Sites
•
TechMeme
•
Hacker News
(techmeme.com, techmeme.com/lb) (news.ycombinator.com)
•TechCrunch •TheVerge •AllThingsD •TheNextWeb •News.cnet.com •GigaOm •Business Insider •Mashable
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Event Sources Events
•
WebWallflower Events (webwallflower.com)
• •
MeetUp EventBrite
•SF New Tech •SF BETA •TechCrunch Disrupt •GigaOm/events •Events.Mashable.com •DEMO •Under the Radar •The Startup Conference
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Incubators / Coworking Incubators
Coworking Spaces
•Ycombinator •500 Startups •The Founder Institute •AngelPad •Plug and Play •I/O Ventures
•NextSpace.biz •RocketSpace •Hacker Dojo •Parisoma •Dogpatch Labs
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
“Backblaze: Possibly world’s
easiest online backup ”
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
1 of 2 people will lose data Source: Backblaze research shows 46% of its customers restore data each year. Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
But, 94% Of People Still Do Not Backup
Don’t Regularly Backup
Why? Source: Harris Interactive Survey conducted June 28 - 30, 2011; Details available at: http://www.backblaze.com/press-June-is-Backup-Awareness-Month-2011.html
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
It’s just too hard. Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Introducing Backblaze
“
Backblaze offers hassle-free unlimited online backup
"Backblaze Is Simplest Way Yet to Back Up PC Files"
"Online Backup with Time Machine's Finesse"
”
"Making off-site backups brainless"
AlwaysOn Winner
Backblaze’s backup application is one of the easiest to use.
“It’s genius is in it’s simplicity.”
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Backblaze Makes Online Backup Easy
Backup Online
Restore Easily
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Zero-Configuration Install
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Restore Easily
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
$5/Month Unlimited
Unlimited Storage
Unthrottled Bandwidth
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Just $5/Month
Petabytes on a Budget How to Build Cheap Cloud Storage
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Backup Online
Restore Easily
$5/month = unlimited storage Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Amazon S3?
$5/Month = 30 GB
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Buy a storage system?
Subtotal:
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
$1,000,000.99
Nope. Build our own.
Prototype fast – plywood works
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
DIY Cloud
Search “petabytes on a budget”
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
135 Terabytes for $7,384
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Cost of a Petabyte (pod v1.0)
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
300+ Pods / 30+ Petabytes
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
How is Backblaze Unique? Zero-Config Experience = Increased User Acquisition
High-Performance Engine = Improved User Retention
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Efficient Cloud Storage = Higher Business Margins
“Backblaze: Possibly world’s
easiest online backup ”
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
“Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley
What
Presentation for FastForward
When
April 10, 2012
Who
Gleb Budman @glebbudman Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
�
Continuously, Compressed, Encrypted
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Essential
Non-Essential
$$ 99.99% uptime
Toss the unnecessary
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Use consumer parts – stay away from IT tax
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Server Power Supply
VS Desktop Power Supply
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Backblaze for Business Same price as consumer $50/year
Only unlimited online backup service for business
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Locate My Computer
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
$1 million counterfeit cash
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Total Cost of Ownership (pod 2.0)
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential
Backblaze, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential