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Lyft

Lyft: Making Car-pools Comfortable and Profitable

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Due to growing environmental concerns, more and more people are shifting to carpooling and ride-share options. Companies such as Uber and Ola have profited from this shift in perspective. There’s another company that joined this cab-share bubble, much before it was a viable investment option. Headquartered in California, Lyft is a ride-share company that operates in over 644 cities in the US. The Lyft mobile app has become a sensation, offering rides, car-pool options, and even food delivery services. Here’s a look at their climb to success and fame.

How the System Works

Lyft has the second-largest market share in the United States, following Uber closely controlling 28% of the market as per the Second Measure. Users download and install the Lyft app on their mobile devices. They then register on the system, sign-up with their mobile number, and verify a payment system. The app supports payment via cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and even PayPal.

They can then book their rides, and once the trip is complete, their account is debited. The app provides information such as driver name and photograph to ensure safety. Both drivers and passengers have the option to add their personal information such as hometown and music preferences. Users also have the option to pay their drivers tips as they seem fit.

About the Founders of Lyft

Logan Green grew up in California, graduating with a BA in Business Economics from the University of California. The inspiration for founding Zimride came from having spent most of his life stuck in traffic, as per Green. He started the company as a means to solve the state’s transportation faults and shortcomings. Due to the limitations of public transportation, he requested Zipper to work from UCSB but they couldn’t due to the shortage of vehicles. So, Green acquired some cars and began a car-sharing program that had over 2,000 participants. This idea later took shape and became Zimride in 2007.

Logan Green
Image Source: Google Images

John Zimmer grew up in Connecticut, graduating in Hotel Administration from Cornell University at the top of his class. He then worked as an analyst for Lehman Brothers in New York. He met Green via Facebook while at Lehman Brothers, opting to quit his job to focus on their company. Green and Zimmer later moved to Silicon Valley and shared an apartment to grow the company, without taking salaries for three years.

Launch and Early Beginnings of Lyft

Computer programmers John Zimmer and Logan Green founded Lyft in 2012 as a subsidiary of Zimride. The latter worked as a long-distance carpooling company founded by the duo in 2007. The idea for Zimride came to Green on one of his frequent travels from the University of California to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend. He initially used Craigslist’s ride boards but faced anxiety as he knew neither the passenger nor the driver.

Facebook launching its API to developers served as Green’s motivation to set up such a company. Soon enough, Zimride grew to become US’s largest carpool company. Green met John Zimmer on Facebook via a mutual friend. The company’s name came from Zimbabwe, wherein Green saw locals sharing a minivan during his trip there in 2005. Zimride launched at Cornell University, and six months later, 20% of the company had hopped on. In 2013, the company legally changed its name to Lyft, and in July of the same year, Lyft sold Zimride to Enterprise Holdings.

Growth of Lyft

While Zimride focused on colleges, Lyft served as a company enabling shorter trips within cities. The large pink mustaches on the front of cars became a symbol for Lyft. In 2014, it launched in 24 US cities, overnight, bringing its overall total to 60 cities. The same year, Lyft hired lobbying agents to handle the resistance they had faced since launching.

By mid-2014, Lyft launched its shared-taxi plan to enable cheaper rides to customers. By the end of next year, Lyft became the only company allowed to pick passengers up from the airport at Los Angeles. In 2017, Lyft completed its 160 millionth ride and launched in another 100 cities, bringing its total to 200 cities.

By the end of 2017, Lyft expanded its services to several Canadian cities such as Ontario, Toronto, and Ottawa. The following year, they partnered with All scripts to facilitate rides for patients, serving over 2,500 hospitals and 7 million patients. They acquired a bicycle-sharing company Motivates in late 2018.

The company went public in 2018, the first ride-sharing company to do so at a valuation of $24.3 billion, raising $2.34 billion. Also, by 2019, the company successfully completed over 5000 rides via self-driving cars in Las Vegas and has since grown tremendously, providing over a million rides a day.

Softtek

Blanca Trevino- President of Softtek who help to grow the IT sector in Latin America

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Mexican IT firm, Softtek is well-known for application software development. Additionally, it offers services in testing, security as well as IT infrastructure management. In fact, it was one of the largest private IT vendors in Latin America. Also, Softtek is known for its female CEO and president Blanca Trevino. Under her headship Softtek rise as Latin America’s largest IT service provider. Softtek has thirty offices in different areas of Asia, Europe, and America. As well as, more than 12,000 employees work for a company.

Softtek

Softtek is a well-known IT company in several regions of Latin and North America, Asia, and Europe. In fact, as of 2010, Softtek was the biggest Information Technology(IT) vendor in Latin America. Softtek’s headquarter is set up in Monterrey, Mexico.

However, it has more than 15k associates in Mexico and abroad. It is famous for its services in software development, security, support, and testing. Also, it provides services to more than 400 corporations in more than twenty countries. 

Blanca Trevino – Softtek’s CEO and President

Blanca Trevino was one of the founding members of the Softtek in 1982. Presently, she is the president and Softtek’s CEO. In fact, she appreciates at an international level as a promoter of the Information Technology industry.

Blanca Trevino
Image Source: Google Images

Also, to grow the IT field in Latin America, she has teamed up with several government administrations. Under her leadership, Softtek achieved recognition by CNN expansion as a super company for launching young careers. Let’s overlook how she managed to become a powerful business tycoon.s 

Educational Background

In1981, Blanca Trevino completed a bachelor’s degree in computer systems administration at the Monterrey Campus. During her education, she was intimidated at first. Because all her classmates were boys. But her father supported and encouraged her to complete the graduation. Thankfully, Blanca stuck with it and earned her degree.

Softtek Foundation backstory

She started her career with a part-time job at one of the biggest companies in Monterrey, known as Alfa. This company downsized and laid her off. That time, she determines to start her own company. Finally, she successfully co-founded Softtek in 1982. She became one of the nine partners of the company, who were dreaming of established global enterprise.

In fact, she invested 10,000 dollars for the foundation of the company. Today, the firm has thirty offices in different areas of Asia, Europe, and America. Also, more than 12,000 employees work for Softtek. In fact, Blanca’s initiative known as “Near Shore” explores the area of the company in the United States.

Blanca’s leadership at Softtek

In August 2000, she took the position of CEO and president of the company. Her policies and business strategies made Softtek a global leader in the IT industry. In fact, Softtek became the only non-Indian IT provider for the U.S. market.

Other Associations of Blanca’s

Apart from Softtek, she plays various roles for many associations. She is a Mexican business council’s vice president. Also, Blanca is one of Walmart Mexico’s members. In addition, she is a board member of many other associations. Includes, Mexican stock exchange, Grupo Lala, etc.

Triumph of Blanca Trevino

Blanca named in CNN expansion magazine’s list of most powerful women in Mexico. In fact, she ranked fourth in 2009. Her dedication and powerful management for Softtek rise the company as well-known IT company in America. Blanca was the first women, who included into the Outsourcing Hall of fame.

In the year of 2011, she received attention from Endeavor organization to encourage entrepreneurship. Also, she honored with Consejo Mexican de Hombres de Negocios in 2014. In fact, she was the first woman to achieve this.

Apart from business, she served for many social clauses. In 2018, she honored with Education leadership award. It was for her contribution to promote an improvement in education in Mexico. Further, she was inducted into the Women technology hall of Fame.

F5-Networks

Dominating The Technical Industry F5 Networks Acquired Nginx For $670 Million

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I think a major part of success depends on the time you start it. For example, when the internet was gradually grasping our world, then start-ups are now a part of the unicorn club. Similarly, the businesses which started growing just before the dot-com boom mostly vanished in no time. So, time is a major factor.

But, exceptions always happen in the business world. Everything is uncertain here. F5 Networks is a technology company that was founded in 1996. Jeff Hussey founded the company and then John McAdam joined him shortly. Both stepped down after serving the company for a long time. F5 Networks is a Seattle based company.

What is F5 Networks?

The term “technical” is a very wide domain. So, what are the specific products of F5 Networks? The company is mainly thriving in the networking area since the beginning. F5 Networks mainly provides ADN (application delivery networking).

ADN uses a series of technologies which when incorporated together secures the network, provides visibility and acceleration. Initially, the company was focused on load-balancing products (distributed network). But, Jeff modified and expanded the company with time. It also includes services like DDoS defense.

About the Founder

Jeff Hussey has a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Seattle Pacific University. He also went to the University of Washington for acquiring his MBA degree. After he graduated in 1991, he joined Pacific Comlink in 1993. He served as the President of the company for a couple of years and then he shifted to Alexander Hutton.

Jeff Hussey
Image Source : Google

In 1996, Jeff founded F5 Networks and served as the CEO of the company for six years. But, this wasn’t the end of his passion. In 2012, Jeff started another start-up in the same area. And, he founded the company, Tempered Networks in August 2014.

John McAdam

John McAdam joined the company in 2012 as the President and CEO. He left the company in 2015. Under John’s leadership, the company expanded and made big acquisitions.

John went to the University of Glasgow and studied Computer Science. He served as the Board Member of Apptio and Tableau Software before joining F5 Networks. From 2015, John is a Board Member at Nutanix as well. Even after John resigned from the company in 2015, he still serves as the Board Member of F5.

Initial Stage of F5 Networks

When Jeff thought of starting a tech start-up, he was more inclined towards the economic part than the part where technology was implemented. Well, his main motive was to invest in something that would become a billion-dollar company someday.

In the meantime, some developers in Seattle started working on virtual reality. This idea was much ahead of the time and unfortunately, the serves didn’t support it. But, they didn’t give up and rather came up with an algorithm for load balancing. Jeff saw potential in this product and bought it from them.

This is how Jeff founded F5 Networks in 1996 and launched its first product in 1997 using that algorithm.

Picking up the momentum

After a couple of years, when the dot-com burst hit the market, it didn’t seem to affect F5 much. Because of the uniqueness of F5 was much advanced and it helped the company to survive the big crisis. In 1999, F5 Networks was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

It was around 2000 when Jeff decided to hire an experienced tech geek for the company. And, John was perfect for the job. F5 Networks offered him the position of the President when he working for IBM. After he joined the company, John predicted the loss it might suffer due to the boom. So, next year he along with his tech team wrote a whole new algorithm for a new market.

Success and Acquisitions

Eventually, F5 Networks started provided security services as well. And, after the next couple of years, it started making huge profits. In 2003, the company acquired uRoam for $25 million. In 2007, the company made one of the biggest acquisitions in its history for $210 million.

For two consecutive years, the company’s name came under the section of Fortune’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies. The headquarters of F5 Networks was shifted to the F5 Tower in 2017. The latest news F5 is discussing about is the acquisition of Shape Security. F5 Networks has more than 4,000 employees.

Verizon Wireless

Verizon – How Mergers Helped this Company Become the Largest Wireless Service Provider in America

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Headquartered in New York, Verizon Communications Inc. is a multinational company that delivers broadband and wireless communications services. They are a global leader in the field of communications and operates America’s largest wireless network, with over 107 million connections. They have also branched into other areas and now provides services in information and entertainment sectors, working with a fiber-optic network.

Not only do they have a strong presence in the US, they also operate worldwide with customers in over 150 countries. Notably, they provide services to all of the companies listed in the Fortune 500. Verizon is a Dow 30 company, making more than $106.6 billion in revenues with over 195,000 employees. Here’s a look at their success story and what makes them so special.

About the Company

Bell Atlantic Corp and GTE Corp merged in 2000 to form Verizon, which is incorporated in Delaware. The company turned public and started trading on the New York Stock Exchange as VZ in July of the same year. Ten years later, the company switched to NASDAQ under the same ticker name VZ.

The symbols signify speed and the word, veritas meaning reliability, credited to being the origin of the company name. Though Verizon is a 21st-century company, the companies, and mergers that made its formation possible go back many years.

Their roots may be traced to the early beginnings of the telephone industry in the late 19th century. The telephone industry was given more definition with the signing of the Telecommunications Act in 1996, making it a competitive marketplace.

Merging and Surging Ahead

Some of the largest mergers in US business history created Verizon, with the first one being the joining of Bell Atlantic and GTE in 1998. This move led to their headquarters being shifted from Stamford to Texas. Both these companies had grown side by side, expanding, growing and acquiring other companies.

Each of them commanded substantial market share and were successful in their own right. Before the merger, GTE was one of the largest communications company in the world, ending 1999 with an annual turnover exceeding $25 billion. They had built over 35 million access lines throughout the US, Dominican Republic, and Canada. GTE also had a foothold in the wireless industry, with over 7.1 million customers and 72.5 million potential customers.

In comparison, Bell Atlantic was an even larger company with revenues crossing $33 billion. They served 43 million access lines, along with 22 million houses and over 2 million businesses. They managed the world’s most successful wireless communication companies, with over 7.7 million customers and customers in Latin America and Europe.

Furthermore, they were the world’s largest directory publisher. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the merger came in at over $52 billion. The two companies decided to merge to create a company that would become the telecommunication industry’s giants. It took two years to close, following reviews and approvals from both sides and the Federal Communications Commission.

Starting Verizon Wireless

Around the same time, Bell Atlantic and Vodafone started a new wireless business combining both their wireless assets. The joint venture received approval in six months and the new brand launched in 2000, followed by Verizon Wireless in April. Verizon held the majority share of 55% in Verizon Wireless, thereby controlling it. 

During the beginning, leaders from both Bell and GTE shared management responsibility with GTE CEO Charles Lee becoming Verizon’s co-CEO, along with Ivan Seidenberg. Two years later, in 2002, Lee stepped down, while Seidenberg hung his boots in 2011, being succeeded by Lowell C. McAdam. Lowell served as Verizon’s President and Verizon Wireless’s CEO before becoming CEO.

After acquiring Alltel in 2009, Verizon Wireless turned into the largest wireless company in the U.S. Wireless revenue alone is over $92 billion as of 2016, making them the most successful wireless service provider in the US. Then, in 2014, Verizon made its largest investment by acquiring Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion. This transaction gave them full ownership over the American wireless industry, making them a global leader. With over 177,700 employees and an annual turnover exceeding $132 billion, the company looks all set to have a bright future.

Toppr Logo

Toppr-Evolution of Indian Education System With E-Learning

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The Indian education system does honestly not impress the world or Indian students itself. High competition among students especially after the 12th standard has opened a source of business for private tutors. This is the biggest reason why offline education is so costly in India.

But, we know the major population of our country cannot afford proper education. So, it has a negative impact mostly on the students appearing for a joint entrance examination or a medical examination. To overcome this urgent crisis suffered by mediocre students of our nation, Zishaan Hayath came up with Toppr.

Toppr is an e-learning platform launched in 2013. It assists a student in gaining proper knowledge about the competitive exams who can also watch videos and solve questions. Zishaan along with his ex-classmate Hemanth Goteti launched this innovative and helpful website. Since then a massive amount of students have signed in and made brilliant outcomes.

About the founders of Toppr

Zishaan Hayath went to IIT Bombay and graduated in 2005. His first step into the corporate world was with ITC Limited where he joined as an Assistant Manager. In April 2006, he joined Opera Solutions as an Assistant Consultant. He co-founded Chaupaati Bazaar, a phone-commerce start-up in 2008.

Futurebazaar.com acquired Chaupaati Bazaar and Zishaan became the VP Product of Futurebazaar eventually. In April 2013, he co-founded Toppr with Hemanth.

Hemanth studied Aerospace Engineering in IIT Bombay. He worked in many companies before co-founding Toppr. Hemanth also worked at Futurebazaar.com as Head of Engineering.

How did it start?

Zishaan knew Hemanth from college and working together before co-founding Toppr made a good understanding between them. Both of them were tech geeks and their idea was to use technology into a sector with a massive audience. In India, most of the youngsters are highly devoted to gaining proper education. So, what could be better than implementing high tech in the educational system?

This led the co-founders to come with Toppr. Toppr received its initial funding from Kasyap Deorah and Abhisekh Jain. Within one year of launching Toppr, 8000 students signed up for the preparation courses of JEE, medical exams, and foundation courses.

At this time, many websites like this already came in the market but Toppr clearly steered the right direction.

The Positive Side

The middle-aged children’s population seeking education has outnumbered even China. This opened a huge potential for the platforms of e-learning. And, now that the age of the internet has come everyone prefers learning from websites. Because going to coaching classes is both expensive and time-consuming.

Moreover, different cities have different quality of education. For example, we all know Rajasthan has the best coaching facilities for JEE and medical entrance exams. But, with the help of a mobile app, every student at every corner of India received the same quality education.

Currently, there are around 8 million users that pay for their courses in Toppr. And, for a start-up, it is a pretty impressive number of paid users. The revenue keeps increasing thrice every year for the last three years.

The Expansion

In May 2014, Toppr raised a funding of $2 million from SAIF Partners and Helion Ventures. Zishaan announced that all the funds raised will be invested to improve the existing modules. In April 2015, Toppr acquired EasyPrep, a platform that served the same purpose as Toppr.

Within a year, the team of Toppr comprised of 100 members and served more than 150,000 students. The rate of success also increased every year since the study materials were made by freelancers from IITs. The Mumbai-based start-up also acquired Manch in 2015. Zishaan announced that the main reason behind the acquisitions is making education more affordable.

In 2017, Toppr raised $450 million from SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures and FIL Capital Management. And, it raised another $155 million from Alteria Capital. In the last three years, Toppr received a massive amount of funding from the existing investors and also $35 million from Kaizen Private Equity. This was the latest round of funding.

The Success

The company so far has reached out to students from twenty-five different cities. By 2020, their target is to reach thirty cities and also to thrice its annual revenue. The app approximately has seven million total downloads to date. The subscription charge of Toppr is also very affordable which adds a big plus point in its list.

NetApp Logo

NetApp – Surviving The Dot-Com Burst And Becoming One Of The Biggest Data Management Companies

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The cloud computing services have majorly developed in the past few years. Many Indian start-ups have also been emerging. But, more importantly, Indians are acquiring powerful positions in many top tech companies around the world. One of the most established Indian, George Kurian is the current CEO of the company, NetApp.

NetApp is a California based company founded in 1992. The company’s main products are cloud computing, cloud storage, and data management. David Hitz, James Lau, and Michael Malcolm founded the company twenty-eight years ago. In 2015, George Kurian became the CEO of the company.

About the Founders

David went to Annandale High School but he dropped out. Becoming a Silicon Valley icon or establishing a billion-dollar company, none was present in the bucket list of David. But, somehow he became the founder of one of the best companies in the industry of cloud computing.

After graduating from Princeton University, David started working at MIPS Technologies. David’s main role in the companies was as a Software Engineer. In April 1992, he co-founded NetApp and became the Executive VP of Engineering. In 2000, David became the Chairman of the Hitz Foundation.

James went to City College of San Francisco and Heald College- San Francisco. He worked at HP Enterprise Services for more than thirteen years. Currently, he is the System Engineer of NetApp.

Early History

In 1992, when the company was founded it was named Network Appliance, Inc. After a couple of years, the company received venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital. Within three years of its establishment, that is, in 1995 the company filed its first IPO. The company started growing rapidly from the very beginning.

Unexpected Success

In 1997, the company acquired Internet Middleware for $10.5 million. The company stood strong during the time of dot-cot burst and emerged out of it even stronger. A lot of companies suffered huge losses during this boom and a few were even dissolved. But, from 1999 through 2001, NetApp’s annual revenue turned up to $1 billion.

The Key to Success

With the evolution of the start-up culture throughout the world and especially India, criticism arises simultaneously. The most important question is whether a founder should step down and give control to the young entrepreneurs of today.

David, in one of his interviews, said that it is not about the 90s founders or current generation. When a company is built from scratch there might be times when the founders only focus on the remaining products. They don’t consider expanding harms the future of the company. We all know evolution is the key to survival. And, that’s the reason NetApp is still on track.

When the vision of a founder is limited they are expected to step down. But, it doesn’t necessarily mean all the founders will have limited vision.

Struggling Moments

David said there were two moments where they needed to hold their breath and be patient. First, when the first CEO of the company stepped down. David said he has the best management styles in the company. But, once the company started expanding with a lot of managers reporting to each other, he didn’t enjoy it anymore. Eventually, he moved to another company.

Well, the company might have survived the dot-com burst but it suffered major losses. During 2000, the price of the company’s stock fell from $150 to $10. And, that’s when he realized he should expand its territory in terms of products.

Success and Acquisitions

In 2004, NetApp acquired Spinnaker Networks for $300 million. The next year, NetApp acquired Alacritus for $11 million. In this year, the company also acquired Decru for security storage systems. The following years witnessed the acquisition of Topio, Onaro, Bycast, Akkori, Engenio and many more.

NetApp under George Kurian

George after joining the company has focused mainly on the new trends and products. He, in an interview, said that the product revenue has been increasing rapidly especially for the new products. The Asian market has also grown well in the last couple of years. Though the company is having a relatively small market share in Asia, it is capable of replacing some bigger companies.

The three biggest markets of NetApp are the UK, France, and Germany. NetApp’s latest acquisition was Cognigo.