Your Tech Story

start-up

Fastly Logo

Fastly: How This Company with The Right Values is Growing at The Speed of Light

Leave a Comment / start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Data is everywhere now thanks to the Internet Age. According to studies, the amount of total data collected doubles, every two years. Everything from our Internet history to our calendar schedule forms a part of digital data that is important. Research shows that by 2020, we will be producing 1.7 MB worth of data every second! So where does all this data go? Due to Hardware constraints, all computers and mobile phones come with a stipulated storage limit. Also, external hard drives we purchase also have stringent limits on how much space they have. So how do we store the massive amounts of data we create?

Why We Need Cloud Computing

We all want to retain those videos from our first college performance, and also need quick access to our work documents. How can we come up with a system that is secure and at the same time, large enough to store everything? Well, cloud computing has helped most people deal with their storage woes by providing huge amounts of space! Not only do you get to keep your precious memories, but you also get to do so without cluttering up your home.

All your information is locked away in a vault in the sky, so you can loop up baby pictures, and schedule appointments on the go. This time around, we are going to look at one of the fastest-growing cloud computing service providers in the world!

What is Fastly Inc

Fastly Inc.’s highly efficient edge cloud platform allows users access to an extremely fast content delivery network that helps them keep all their memories. Furthermore, the company also provides security services, video streaming, and load balancing. Headquartered at San Francisco, this American juggernaut has offices in New York, London, Portland, Tokyo, and Denver.

Founding Fastly

Artur Bergman founded Fastly in 2011 because he felt the need for a fast and efficient cloud computing service. Prior to founding Fastly, Bergman worked as the VTO of Wikia. Three years into its founding, Google paired up with them to offer users CDN services. This served as a huge boost to the company, which then grew at unprecedented rates.

Image Source – Twitter

So much so, that in 2017, the company launched its own edge cloud platform that supported a ton of new features. The same year, they acquired a Texas-based content delivery network named CDN Sumo. The company helps users extend and expand their existing cloud infrastructure using their network. Furthermore, the service also includes several features such as load balancing, image optimization, and video streaming.

Software Structure

The company’s software works on Varnish, which is an open-source HTTP accelerator. Since they use an open-source product, Bergman has also made it a point to give back to the open-source community. The company supports several non-profit projects such as Hackage, Drupal and DonorsChoose.org. Varnish became the platform for Fastly because it allowed them to reverse proxy and is highly customizable. The software designers always kept performance in mind and then scaled their applications using Varnish. The particular version of Varnish used by them is optimized for large applications, due to the presence of caches.

Giving Back to The Community

Bergman attributes his desire to give back to his raising in a feminist environment such as Sweden. Due to their smaller power distance culture; being inclusive was a way of life rather than a magnanimity. Bergman also believes that diverse teams improve the workspace environment leading to higher productivity. The more diverse the leadership, the easier it becomes to find and encourage diverse talents. This, in turn, makes it possible to create and design diverse products that change the world.

Company Values

Furthermore, Fastly takes both employee and customer satisfaction quite seriously. Since the company works on projects that help people, employees feel great about their work. More people are happy, meaning they genuinely want to look after their users, which makes for great customer engagement and satisfaction. Over 90 employees at Fastly, which constitutes 25% of their workforce, have been there for more than four years.

This proves without a doubt, how important the company views its internal policies and values. The company’s executive team has an almost equal number of men and women. Furthermore, more than 50 percent of their engineers fall into trans, people of color and LGBTQ communities.

Resounding Success

Fastly recently added another $75 million via Series D funding, making the total money hit $130 million! After the financing round, the company named ex-VP of Netsuite, Dan Miller, their CFO. Furthermore, the company recruited ex- Apple privacy strategist, and Mozilla’s security chief to their already impressive employee roster. The company is growing at over 300% year after years, with a team that has grown to over 450 employees now. While the company pushed 40 TB a day in 2012, the data limit per day now stands at 5 PT!

The company already has several high-profile customers such as Twitter, The Guardian, Pinterest, and Wayfair. The company also helped Stripe improve their checkout time by 80%, leading to even more popularity and goodwill within the industry. The company keeps growing from strength to strength having made $144 million in 2018, with revenue growing at 37.8%! Around the world, over 3 billion people see content that served via Fastly, and this is 75% of the world’s internet users. Sure enough, there might come a day, wherein every internet user receives content through a Fastly platform!

Fortinet

Fortifying Your Networks: This Volleyball-loving 6’5 Entrepreneur Runs a $13 Billion Dollar Business

Leave a Comment / start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

We all rely on the Internet for most of our things. Everything from our family photos to important work details is on the Internet. Therefore, we need to be sure that they are in safe hands. So, how do we make sure that our data is safe? Well, Cybersecurity software helps us with this by using a combination of measures such as firewalls, privacy protection, and anti-virus software. Thanks to high-profile data breaches, malicious hacks, and extortion scams, maintaining good Cyber-measures has become a priority for companies. This time, we will be taking a look at one of the most prominent Cybersecurity firms in the world. Here’s how Fortinet founder Ken Xie helps to make the world wide web a safer, better place!

About the Founders

Ken Xie did his electrical engineering from Stanford and started his first Cyber-security firm named SIS while in college. One of his early ventures was bought by Juniper for $4 billion, and two decades later, his company is worth $13 billion, exceeding that of Juniper! Meanwhile, Michael Xie, who serves as the firm’s president and CTO, did his electrical engineering from the University of Manitoba. Ken is also a gifted athlete, who wanted to be a professional volleyball player while growing up. He stands tall at six feet and five inches, but his parents who worked at the Tsinghua University in China didn’t agree with his career plan. Instead, they got him interested in engineering and Xie’s life transformed.

A Family Initiative

Brothers Michael and Ken Xie founded Fortinet in 2000, by launching their first firewall Fortigate. They then added new features such as wireless access points, messaging options and sandboxing in later years. Within three years, the company raised more than $90 million in funding. Fortinet went public in 2009, after raising over $156 million through its IPO. Fortinet released its Security Fabric system in 2016, and since then, the product has added several new features such as IoT and WAN.

Earlier Efforts

Before starting Fortinet, Ken Xie founded NetScreen, while Michael Xie was as an executive at ServeGate. The duo built Appligation Inc in 2000, later renamed to ApSecure the same year, which finally became Fortinet. The pair got the idea to name their company Fortnite through the phrase Fortified Networks. While trying to raise funds for Fortinet, Ken’s earlier effort, NetScreen got acquired by Juniper Networks for around $4 billion.

Early Years

Their first product came out only two years later, after stringent research and development. Between the years of 2000 and 2003, the company was able to raise over $13 million through private funding. By August of 2003, they brought in another $30 million, while they added an additional $50 million in 2004. In 2003, they launched their first channel program and began distribution in Canada the same year, via Westcon Canada. They expanded to the UK through Norwood Adam in 2004 through Norwood Adam. They also expanded to other countries and had set up other international offices in Europe, Asia, and North America by 2004.

Profits and Early Growth

The company turned cash positive in 2008 and acquired database security firm IPLocks the same year. All 28 employees of the company were extended job opportunities by Fortinite, as a very thoughtful gesture. A year later, they acquired the Ethernet-based company, Woven Systems. By the end of 2009, Fortnite commanded almost 15% of the total market, making them an industry stalwart. CRN Magazine also named them first in security hardware, a huge improvement from the seventh pace they got the year before.

IPO and Huge Success

The company sold 5.8 million shares and raised $52.4 million through its IPO in 2009. Another 6 million shares were sold by stockholders, leading to an increase in the share price from $9 to $12.50. By the end of that one single day, the company had raised over $156 million in financing. Fast forward two years, Fortinet was making $324 million a year, commanding the largest share in the market. In 2013, they launched monthly subscription options for customers with less capital. The company also acquired XDN, Coyote Point, Meru Networks and AccelOps between 2012 and 2016.

New Initiatives

They expanded to new ventures in 2014 by launching a technical certification named Network Security Expert. Two years later, the company found a way to fill Cybersecurity vacancies by launching the Network Security Academy. Through this program, the donated equipment and helped Universities train students for jobs. Furthermore, in 2016 they launched a program that encouraged military veterans to try their hand at Cyber-security, named FortiVet.

They expanded to new ventures in 2014 by launching a technical certification named Network Security Expert. Two years later, the company found a way to fill Cybersecurity vacancies by launching the Network Security Academy. Through this program, the donated equipment and helped Universities train students for jobs. Furthermore, in 2016 they launched a program that encouraged military veterans to try their hand at Cyber-security, named FortiVet.

Research Results

Research predicts that the Cyber-security market will grow 10 percent every year till 2023, and so things look good for this multi-million-dollar enterprise. Furthermore, Fortinet is growing at 20%, being valued at a staggering $13 billion in 2018. Their shares now stand around the $81 mark, which is six times more than their initial listing of $9.

Fortinet headquartered Sunnyvale, California is helping revolutionize the Cyber-security industry, and is now an industry giant. The company continues to grow at over 15%, raking in $416.7 million last year. With over 467 patents and another 291 pending, it is safe to say that the future looks safe and secure for Fortinet; much like how the Cyber-space is, thanks to them!

Hostgator Logo

This Entrepreneur Built a Million-Dollar Web-Hosting Company While in College

Leave a Comment / start-up, Tech Story / By

Hosting websites like HostGator on the internet is a great business because nowadays everyone is on the internet! With the dot com bubble being bigger than ever before, companies are fighting it out to grow their online presence. Since most of the customers have migrated to the digital market, companies had to follow suit as well, and soon enough digital marketing took shape. Having a great online presence ensures a steady stream of customers. But with so many companies out there, how do companies ensure that they make a mark? Web hosting services help companies provide quality service, and create unique designs, at the same time. This time, we will be taking a look at one such hosting service, that is making its presence felt. Here’s how a company formed in freshman year of college, is now taking over the digital space.

Creating HostGator

The idea for HostGator came to Brent Oxley when he was in college. Brian joined Florida Atlantic University, knowing he had to make it big. Since it was the first time in years, he had free time, he spent the first few months just making friends and socializing. However, he soon realized that though he was having a great time, he was also wasting his time. Therefore, Brent switched lanes and started thinking of ideas to get out of college and start his own thing.

Since he had only a few thousand dollars as savings, he knew he had to look for something internet-based, as they require less capital. Brent had been noticing for a while that the advertising market was quite unstable, to say the least. Since he required a recurring revenue source, he chose to try his hand at web hosting. That’s how the idea of HostGator came to be.

Handling College

Soon after, Brent Oxley sat in his dorm room working away on his keyboard, searching for the aptest name for his service. Most of the domain names he had in mind were already taken, and he ended up trying over a hundred names. Finally, he ended up with Hostgator.com., while hostlion.com. also made it to the last round of selection. He then went on to register his domain as HostGator in 2002. However, his dorm room wasn’t the best place to work in, with loud roommates, bad AC and internet connection playing spoil-sport. He ended up speaking to the IT Manager almost every day, regarding the multi-hour outages. However, college life went on, with the dorm room serving as the headquarters for HostGator. Brent would go to class, and then complete all his homework and work from previous classes over there, so that he had more time for Hostgator. Thanks to his effort, by the end of the first semester, the business started to take off. It then became very difficult to juggle classes and his start-up. Finally, mid-way through the second semester, it got to a point wherein he was awake at night making support and sales calls!

Education vs Start-up

Brent pulled through the first year and then got the entire summer for himself to focus on HG. The business started to thrive and Brian invested $1,000 of his into the startup. When summer drew to a close, Brent had two options; either drop out or shut his business! Brent felt confident enough to go with the former, though he faced strict resistance from home. Most of his extended family and friends believed that this would be the worst mistake of his life. However, eventually, they all came around, and Brent dropped out to focus on his business. In 2003, Brent’s venture had 112 active customers, and one year later, that number multiplied to become 1,031 active customers.

Figuring Things Out

HG launched a reseller hosting along with shared hosting and took a couple of years to get their dedicated hosting services online. Brent hated reseller hosting initially, as the resellers kept asking him for technical support. However, once he started experimenting with advertising, he fell in love with the concept, and since then, has invested in this market-space. HG started their advertising campaigns on Yahoo with a $1,200 campaign that yielded no results. However, the process taught Brian that he could convert resellers to customers for $80 a piece. HG then became one of the first services to invest in unlimited domains, and quickly the company exploded!

Brent also recalls how in the first two years of starting HG, he was always on the phone providing support and making sales calls. Three years later, most of his responsibilities included expansion, deals and doing sales. Now that the company has established itself, the CEO finds himself focusing on customer satisfaction and HR. Since the early days, the business has grown exponentially and now has over 400,000 customers. Over the years, the company has also paid a lot of attention to its reputation. The follow all social media handles carefully, and always apologizes if any customer had a bad experience. They are also very keen on making things right, and this has helped them make promoters out of bashers!

Expansion and Hiring

In 2006, the company’s Ontario office opened, making it their first international office. The same year, the company outgrew its modest 2,000 square foot office in Boca Raton and moved to a much bigger 25,000 square foot building in Texas. Along with the company, forty of the company’s fifty Florida employees also made the move, marking a huge shift in their operations. The company also branched into the field of SEO Hosting a couple of years earlier, and the business is doing phenomenal. Seohosting.com contributes a significant amount to the company’s revenue. The company launched its own blog in 2007, coming out with its first post on May 4th,2007. The blog officially called Gator Crossing has become wildly successful due to its relevant and concise posts on web-hosting and digital marketing. That same year, the company opened its second international office in Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Fast Growth and Acquisition

Fast forward two years, the company hit 200,000 customers, having reached their first 100,000 in mid-2008! The company kept growing at an unprecedented rate, and by 2010 outgrew its Houston office. They again looked West, and soon moved into a massive 100,000 square foot office in Texas. Brent moved to the post of Chairman the same year. Due to them growing in leaps and bounds, the company was also pushing an aggressive HR policy, trying to employ as many talented professionals as possible. In 2011, they hit the 500 employee mark, and hasn’t stopped growing since! In the same years, they received their 5,000,000th LiveChat. Such fast growth rates and impressive revenue generation led to the Endurance International Group acquiring HostGator in 2012. Two years later, the company expanded to include Chinese and Russian markets as well, beginning operations in Mexico, the following year!

This success story proves without a doubt, how sometimes the best things happen to people who take risks. Things would have turned out very differently for Brent if he had chosen to stay on in college. By choosing to follow his dream, Brent established a company that has now become an industry standard. The one-man hosting company has now become an industry stalwart with over 500 employees, and 5 million domain names thanks to his efforts and hard work.

Bluehost logo

How Bluehost Evolved to Become the Perfect Host

Leave a Comment / start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Since companies shifted their services and business online, web hosting services have been having a great business. With the Internet Age being in full force, such companies that help other companies in maintaining websites have been seeing tremendous growth. One such company, which was able to make use of the internet boom to capture a large market share is Bluehost. Here’s a look at how this web hosting company grew to be one of the biggest players in the market.

Founding Bluehost

Matt Heaton, is in no way a stranger to cyberspace, being a serial entrepreneur with a love for all things cyber-related. He opened Computer Warehouse at the age of 21, then moved on to Free50, and HostMonster, before adding Bluehost to his resume. Matt Heaton began Bluehost as a free service named 0catch.com. But soon enough the service became so popular that he could upgrade it to a paid service.

Therefore, he renamed the company and re-launched it as a shared-hosting service in 2003. Very affordable plans, great customer service, and unique features helped propel the brand as they became a standard in the industry. One of the biggest selling points of the company was the fact that it provided different price points. Hence, everyone from an individual running a business to a multi-national conglomerate could find what they were looking for on Bluehost.

Early Years and Growth

The company invested in research and did pioneering work in the field of server hosting. In 2009, they launched CPU throttling, which helped in reducing CPU usage whenever a user pulled too many resources. Whenever a user took up too much of the server resources the software drastically reduced their usage, shutting down their sites. This innovative method that helped prevent CPU burnout, also helped the company keep its resources in play effectively. Furthermore, it also served as a great warning to other users from doing the same thing, helping substantially to improve the hosting platform’s performance.

Another feature that helped Bluehost stand a class apart from competitors was the fact that their service was easy to use. The company used templates that even less technologically-savvy can navigate and figure out. Throughout their growth and expansion strategies, the company has stuck to its principle of making their layouts as simple as possible. By providing plug and play website templates, the company makes setting up and running your own website an easy affair. Moreover, Bluehost was also the first to advertise their uptime record, which helped build a feeling of reliability for their brand.

Sustained Growth and Success

Endurance International acquired Bluehost in 2010, due to its stellar performance in the years following its founding. Even after the acquisition by Endurance International Group, the company made it clear that BlueHost would continue to work under its own name. Some of the other holdings that Endurance International has to include FatCow, Hostgator, JustHost, and Mojo Marketplace.

A year later, CEO Matt Heaton stepped down to work on the platform’s structure and COO Dan Handy took over. Bluehost introduced their own VPS and dedicated hosting in 2013, further expanding their business, and acquiring a larger share of the market. The company provides various services now, such as shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud and WordPress hosting. Most of their servers run on PHP 7 and HTTP/2 caching. In 2015, Mike Olson took over as the CEO, while Handy moved to the field of mobile and application development for small-scale businesses.

The company ran into trouble in 2009, when they censored websites hosted by citizens of countries the US considered rogue states. Furthermore, in 2011, they had to take down a religious website they hosted for making insensitive comments on minorities. But quick thinking, good crisis recovery methods, and smart branding have helped them navigate through such controversies and maintain a great brand image.

Bluehost is one of the largest web hosts in the world, with over 2 million domains. They also play a major role in the working of their sister concerns, iPage, HostMonster, and FastDomain. Headquartered in a massive 50,000 square feet server facility in Utah with HostMonster, Bluehost has over 700 employees in that facility alone. They are pioneers in the field of hosting, having been one of the earliest analyzers of collaborative virtual learning programs. BlueHost has grown to become one of the most recognized names in the field of Webhosting with decades’ worth of experience and by utilizing smart business acumen.

Open DNS Logo

Serving Up Those Domains: How This Company Got So Big It Caught Cisco’s Attention

Leave a Comment / Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

The Internet is an ever-changing environment with a lot of features and threats. Since the internet age started, more services have been shifting to digital platforms to grow and expand. Therefore, companies that provide services related to the internet have grown substantially in the last two decades. Today, we will be looking at one such company. Here’s how OpenDNS grew to become a multi-million-dollar business in the field of domain services.

What the Company Does

OpenDNS stands for Open Domain Name System. The company provides features such as protection against phishing content filtering. OpenDNS also has a product named Umbrella, which has tools providing cloud computing security. This product suite protects enterprise companies from all kinds of digital attacks including phishing, malware, and botnets. OpenDNS handles over 100 billion DNS queries daily and boasts of more than 85 million users around the world.

About the Founder

David Ulevitch grew up in Del Mar, California and showed an early interest in computers. He worked for a regional ISP, named ElectriCiti before starting high school. It was from here that he picked up his interest in network administration. While Ulevitch was at Washington University, he created EveryDNS to manage his DNS needs. The company grew from being a project to a company with over 100,000 users. In 2010, Dyn, Inc acquired EveryDNS. 

Launching OpenDNS

Launched in 2006, OpenDNS came to life due to the efforts of computer scientist David Ulevitch. The initial funding for the company came via venture capitalists like CNET founder, Halsey Minor. Later that year, they launched PhishTank. The service allows users to submit suspected phishing sites. The other members could then review these sites and decide whether it was a scam. 

In 2007, OpenDNS started a domain-blocking service to help users block and allow access to various sites. The categories of sites blocked worked on individually managed blacklists and whitelists that the company controlled. A year later, OpenDNS made the list community-driven allowing subscribers to suggest websites. If the site suggested got enough votes, then the site became a part of the blacklist, and subsequently blocked. By 2014, the list had grown and included over 60 categories. The former head of VMware, Nand Mulchandan joined OpenDNS as CEO in 2008, replacing David Ulevitch, who became the CTO. He resumed as CEO again in late 2009.

Continued Success 

Two years after launching the free DNS-O-Matic, they launched a premium service called Home VIP. The same year, in 2009, DNS started its foray into the world of enterprise network security through OpenDNS Enterprise. The suite included access managers, audit logs, statistic reports, and customized block page URLs. This product expanded in 2012 through the launch of OpenDNS Insights.

The new service integrated with Microsoft Active Directory, allowing admins granular control. The World Economic Forum named them a Technology Pioneer in 2011. Former CTO of Websense joined OpenDNS as CTO in 2012. Later that year, the company launched the Security Labs for research. They raised over $35 million via a Series C funding led by Glynn Capita, Northgate Capital and Cisco. 

Forming Umbrella

Their biggest launch came in 2012, in the form of Umbrella. The software helped enforce security guidelines for roaming devices like laptops, iPhones, iPads, and tablets. A year later, they came out with the OpenDNS Security Graph to further extend Umbrella. The same year, they introduced the Investigate feature which allowed teams to compare traffic data. Another feature came in 2014 via Intelligent Proxy, which provides proxies for suspicious domains.

Merger with Cisco

Owing to their massive success, industry giant Cisco acquired them in 2015, for US$635 million. The entire deal occurred via an all-cash transaction, and also included incentives for OpenDNS. After the acquisition, the company’s services became Cisco Umbrella, whereas home products remained under the OpenDNS name. Cisco clarified that they would continue developing cloud-based OpenDNS products. The company also mentioned that all existing services would be continued. After the acquisition, Ulevitch became the Senior VP and GM of Cisco’s Security Business in 2016. Two years later, he joined Andreessen Horowitz as a Partner. The company also mentioned that all existing services would be continued. After the acquisition, Ulevitch became the Senior VP and GM of Cisco’s Security Business in 2016. Two years later, he joined Andreessen Horowitz as a Partner. 

Ulevitch grew OpenDNS to become the world’s largest DNS service provider. The acquisition by Cisco is a testament to their growth and success in the field of security architecture.

Legal way to sell Bitcoins in India and get cash in bank

Leave a Comment / start-up, Tech Story / By
Click to start trading in Bitcoin

After RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India) curbs on cryptocurrency where most of cryptocurrency exchanges in India stopped selling of cryptocurrencies for money, many Indian investors were left wondering what to do to cash out the Bitcoins (BTC) they had. In 2018 RBI declared cryptocurrencies as not a legal tender and barred banks to deal in it.

Today there is no direct way to sell your bitcoins and get the money in your bank account in India. Hence people holding Bitcoins who want to sell and get money in their bank are stuck. One way is to transfer your BitCoins to some international exchange wallet and sell there and get money in either some US or UK account or PayPal account (if you qualify to add PayPal). In most cases this is not an easy task for people with Indian ID proofs.

However, there is a way which lets you to sell your BitCoins and get the  cash in your bank account. It is called P2P trading. In P2P trading offered by exchanges like Localbitcoins or WazirX, buyer and seller are matched and cash transaction happens directly between seller and buyer. 

Cash out cryptocurrency in India 
In India you can use exchanges like WazirX that offer P2P trading to sell your Bitcoins or other cryptocurrency and get the cash in your bank or PayTM account.

  1. Create an account on WazirX
  2. Add your bank account, UPI and PayTM details
  3. If you are holding cryptocurrency on any other exchange or wallet, transfer it to WazirX using your WazirX address. Make sure to use correct wallet address.
  4. Once you see your Bitcoins in WazirX wallet, you are ready to trade 
  5. In order to sell Bitcoins you need to first convert it into USDT (another cryptocurrency like BTC) in WaZirX. Hence first trade in BTC to USDT
  6. Once you have got all BTC or any other cryptocurrency converted in USDT, you can go for P2P trade
  7. Go to P2P interface and create a sell order for USDT
  8. You can also check market to see buying offers so that you can create your sell order accordingly
  9. Once your order is placed, it will be matched with buyer(s)
  10. Mostly it takes less than 30 mins
  11. Once the order is matched, buyer will transfer money in your bank account and BTC are locked in escrow until you confirm the payment in WazirX
  12. Sometimes your trade if larger in size may be completed in 2-3 orders. Once you start getting payment(s), you need to confirm the payment so that WazirX can release BTC to buyer

So before 2018 where money was transacting through cryptoexchange to bank and vice versa, it is now a bank transaction between two people (buyer and seller) in which cryptoexchange is not involved. P2P exchange just connects buyers and sellers and keeps the digital coins in escrow till seller confirms that he has received the money and it is now OK to transfer the digital coins to buyer.

Click to open a new WazirX account to trade in Bitcoins