Home: Message List - Event: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

Event: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

CommunityTeam — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:47:40 GMT

Learn how Jive Software grew profitably from a two person business in 2001 to over 150 employees today. Dave Hersh, Jive's CEO will talk about their journey and lessons learned in bootstrapping the company for six years, and when they decided to raise $15 million in VC funding from Sequoia Capital in 2007.

About Jive Software
Jive Software believes work is broken and that people-driven software can fix it. Jive delivers social productivity software to bring together employees, partners and customers in a unified collaboration system, allowing them to create better products, faster processes and improved relationships. Its flagship products, Clearspace and Clearspace Community, are used by over 2,000 customers worldwide, including over 15% of the Fortune 500. Jive was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. For more information, visit Jive Software online at http://www.jivesoftware.com/.

The SBOC Team will take advance questions from users who want to pose a question to Dave. If you have a question, post it here and then check back Today 3-4 PM ET/noon - 1:00PM Pacific or anytime after for Dave's response. You can also pose a question in real time to Dave anytime during the event time. Remember you need to be registered to post a question. So, if you haven't signed up yet, do so now, it's free!

Logistics for events:

Please start posting questions to Dave. Remember the community guidelines; stay on topic and be professional.

The event will be moderated to queue the questions for our guest. After a question is posted it may be delayed and/or moved into a queue. You do not need to repost. Your question has been received but is in a queue waiting for the guest to respond to.

Dave will attempt to answer as many questions as possible; however he may not get to all questions.

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

SBOCTeam — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:01:47 GMT

Dave,

On behalf of the SBOC Team and the members of the Small Business Online Community, we wanted to say we truly appreciated your time today and your professional responses to user questions.

Community members, while our session with Dave has now concluded, please feel free to discuss today's session and the questions answered. Again, if you'd like more information about Dave and Jive Software, visit:

http://www.jivesoftware.com

Thanks again,
The SBOC Team

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

jiveceo — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:00:11 GMT

I'm sure I could learn just as much from the people on this forum, but I just did a keynote for a business plan competition and one of the pieces of
advice I gave for people starting companies was to "work on your character
first". Great companies come out of great character. A big part of this idea was
to take the money out of your mind. If you're just in it for the money, your
actions will reflect this, and your employees will feel it. Do it for something
bigger, something you believe in and are passionate about, and people will follow. And
you'll have a much more enjoyable ride.

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

SBOCTeam — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:55:40 GMT

Dave,

As a last question, what words of wisdom would you give small business owners on growing their business?

Thanks,
The SBOC Team

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

jiveceo — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:53:09 GMT

The name Jive was an idea from the significant other of one of the founders. It was close to the word Java (which it was written in) and was a form of communication (and the original product was a discussion forum application). Plus it was memorable. It has turned out to be a great asset -- no one forgets the name .

Clearspace was more the result of a classic brainstorming exercise. As we get more focused on the enterprise, "Clearspace" as a brand helps the overall image because it sounds a lot more professional, whereas "Jive" can sound a bit consumer-oriented.

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

jiveceo — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:48:26 GMT

Wow. You throw fastballs .

Tons of challenges. A big one was what we ultimately wanted to get out of the company and why we were in it. We had a chance to sell the company before leaving NYC, but after some heartfelt discussions, made the decision to double-down on going big. We weren't in it for the money -- we really were passionate about finding better ways for people to get work done online and building a great company, but it took that decision to solidify it. Those crucibles in a company's development are very important and do define the character of the company.

Another one was focus (alluded to in an earlier post). In the early days, we had about three different products and eight people. Now we effectively have one product with two editions and 160 people. It's easy to have a big appetite and want to do everything, but you need to drown out the voices of specific customers and make sure that what you're doing has big impact across most or all of your customers.

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

SBOCTeam — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:39:25 GMT

Dave,

Clearspace and Jive are interesting names. How did you come up with them?

Thanks,
The SBOC Team

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

akgold — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:39:00 GMT

Hi Dave,

Thanks for sharing your advice with the Community. Here's my question:

In the early days of Jive, what were some of the hardest challenges that helped define the character of your company? Did you have any interesting struggles and/or challenges that after overcoming opened up new windows of opportunity?

Thanks in advance,

Andrew

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

jiveceo — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:37:16 GMT

Location has definitely been a huge part of our growth. We were originally in New York City and just couldn't grow because it was so expensive. Portland has been great because it's a lot less expensive than Silicon Valley, the people are great and there's enough of a software infrastructure that we could hire from. The hard part was finding senior mgmt -- there are less folks here just because the software companies here are a lot smaller than the Bay Area. All in all, it was a great move for us to make -- we've never had anyone leave us for another tech company (great loyalty) and we're close enough to the Bay Area that we can get there quickly. If we had located in the Bay Area like everyone else, I'm sure it would have been a lot harder to get to where we are.

Is Portland the new Silicon Valley? No, but it's definitely got some interesting stuff going on. I feel like it's a bit like San Francisco 30 years ago (before the tech boom hit the region). Artists can still afford to live here, which gives the city a lot of vibrancy and culture.

Re: Event: Today 3-4PM ET: Bootstrapping to VC Funding

Interpreter — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:36:00 GMT

It does! Thanks for taking the time to respond!