Oct 09 2019 66 mins 1
On today's episode of Gritty Founder, Kreig Kent talks with Ev Kontsevoy about how he founded Mailgun and Gravitational. Ev shares extremely valuable advice and strategies for building successful enterprise software companies. Ev is a Co-Founder and CEO of Gravitational Inc. Prior to that, he co-founded Mailgun, the first email service built for developers, which was acquired by Rackspace. He loves high speed trains and open source software that doesn't require an army of consultants to operate. Some Questions Kreig asks Ev: - How did you come up with the idea for Mailgun? (15:55 ) - How did you get the idea for Gravitational? (27:53 ) - What are your thoughts on building enterprise software? (41:21 ) - How did you develop empathy for users and start looking at things from the end-to-end user experience? (44:29 ) - What are some things you’ve learned from the HP Way, and how have you applied it to your management style? (47:08 ) - What drives you as a founder? (52:33 ) - Can you tell us a story of your founding journey where you experienced something that was negative, but it turned out to be a huge blessing? (56:26 ) - What is some advice you can give to the Gritty Founders listening? (59:28 ) In This Episode, You Will Learn: - About Ev’s background and how he started Mailgun (4:25 ) - How to find a big problem to solve (21:07 ) - Staying close to potential customers is important for understanding their needs (37:42 ) - You don’t have to be an extrovert to go out and talk with customers about their pain points, you just need compassion (39:13 ) - The importance of healthy team dynamics (47:30 ) - For every action that we do, there is a lag to see the effects of that action in the real world. Be patient. Things take time. (59:48 ) Connect with Ev Kontsevoy: Twitter Gravitational Mailgun Also Mentioned on This Show... Ev’s favorite quote: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” ―Seneca Ev’s book recommendation: Zero to One by Peter Thiel More Resources: The HP Way by David Packard
