Can experience truly make a difference in the startup world? In this episode of Not Another CEO Podcast, David Politis speaks with Vanja Josifovski, Co-Founder and CEO of Kumo, to explore the journey of leading a cutting-edge AI enterprise.
From his prestigious roles at Pinterest and Airbnb to founding Kumo, Vanja shares the lessons learned, the dilemmas faced, and the excitement of turning vast amounts of relational business data into actionable predictions.
Takeaways:
The Importance of Co-founders: Vanja emphasizes the critical role of choosing the right co-founders. He stresses the importance of complementary skills and experiences that create a sustainable and successful leadership team.
Understanding Market Adaptability: A major challenge for technical founders can be the transition to understanding go-to-market strategies. Vanja shares the struggles of innovating while aligning with market needs and effectively communicating product value.
The Journey From Idea to Reality: Vanja sheds light on how Kumo’s idea sprouted from a simple yet groundbreaking aspiration to simplify the process of turning enterprise data into predictions without the complex machine learning cycle.
Raising Capital in the Current Climate: Although initially easy due to Vanja’s background, he warns about the “honeymoon phase” in fundraising and the necessity of making money quickly, even when resources are abundant.
The Art of Unlearning: As Vanja continues his journey, he highlights unlearning as key to adapting to new challenges. The ability to let go of old practices and adopt new methodologies is vital for growth and evolution.
Quote of the Show:
“It’s always easier to watch somebody do things and criticize… if somebody’s watching you from the side, they’ll always find something wrong.” - Vanja Josifovski
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vjosifovski/
Website: https://kumo.ai/
Ways to Tune In:
Substack:
Spotify:
Apple Podcasts:
Transistor: https://podcast.notanotherceo.com/
#NotAnotherCEO #BusinessSuccess #Kumo
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:24 The Importance of Choosing the Right Co-Founders
04:44 Defining Roles Among Co-Founders
06:49 Challenges of Being a CEO
10:22 Hiring and Building a Team
12:54 Raising Capital and Investor Relations
15:21 Kumo’s Product and Market Fit
18:57 Pricing Models and Strategies
24:28 Acquiring the First Customers
28:28 The Intensity of Starting a Company at 50
32:33 The Importance of Unlearning as a CEO
37:13 Challenges in Go-to-Market and Fundraising
39:14 Kumo’s Vision for the Future
42:28 From Macedonia to Silicon Valley
52:54 Advice to My Younger Self
53:39 Outro
Transcript:
Vanja: [00:00:00] We underestimate the amount of things we need to learn.
David: Welcome to not another CEO podcast. I’m your host, David Politis. Every week we talk to inspiring leaders and get the true stories, the ups and downs, the lessons learned, and come away with actionable advice for our own journeys.
Today’s guest is one of the most experienced AI and data leaders I’ve had on the podcast. He spent his career building and scaling complex data and machine learning systems. He was CTO of Pinterest and Airbnb homes, along with a bunch of other big roles at impressive companies. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Kumo, a company tackling one of the biggest unsolved problems in enterprise ai. How to turn massive amounts of relational business data into accurate production ready [00:01:00] predictions. company has raised over $40 million from a who’s who of investors, including Sequoia, Capital, Ron Conway, Frank Sluman, and many more. Please welcome co-founder and CEO of Kumo Vanya. Yoki.
Vanja: Oh, thank you for the kind words. Uh, David, great to be here today.
David: Great to have you here. First question, jump right into it. What is the one thing that you’ve done big or small at Kumo had the biggest impact? And you do, again, if you’re CEO of another company in the future?
Vanja: Um, You know, being a CEO requires a lot of. You know, small everyday decisions that you have to make. Um, but You know, one thing that’s really, really, really important is to choose your co-founders and make sure that you have the right people next to you because [00:02:00] building a business. It is a long journey and you go through all the seasons, You know, you go through the spring, You know, through the summer, through the fall, and the winters, right?
And you need to make sure you have the right people next to you, You know, to go through all of that. I think that’s a very, very important thing. And if I would go back, I would be. Very careful in choosing the co-founders. Very careful in choosing the leadership team as well, because that’s extremely important to make the journey even sustainable personally.
And then, You know, for the company to be successful,
David: How, how many co-founders do you have?
Vanja: uh, we had three co-founders and, uh, You know, we all three, uh, technical background. We, we have known each other for 15 plus years. We’ve worked together before. Uh, you and I had one company [00:03:00] before that was acquired by Pinterest, so we’ve done this journey already once and, um, You know, that’s, that’s very, very important to know.
Who are you with on the right?
David: Hmm. How, how? Much thought did you have in of making the decision to, to work together as a group of three? Like you knew each other obviously for a long time. Was it just an obvious, hey, we’re gonna work together, or did you, let’s say, date for some period of time before making that decision?
Vanja: That, that, that, that, that’s a great question. And You know, on the first journey, um, with you, I think, You know, it took us a little bit longer. This was about a decade ago. Um, on the second journey, um. I think, You know, we o over the Corona, You know, we all we’re all at home and, and had a little time. We haven’t seen each other for a while because we were stuck at home and, You know, you start, uh, noodling on ideas and, and You know, kind of trying different things.
And I think at some point we [00:04:00] said, all right, we’re gonna do something. Uh, but it took a little while for us to figure out what that is exactly. Then, uh, Hema came along and, uh, You know, the three of us kind of clicked it and, and figured out the right problem. And then, You know, it kind of snowballs from there.
Um, but yeah, it, it takes a little time, um, because it’s not, You know, the people is one thing, but then you want to find that the right thing to solve that everybody’s excited about. And, and that requires some finessing around it because you wanna do something that you’re excited about. You want to have that moment when you’re like, this is it.
You know, this is what we’re gonna do and this is what’s gonna change the freaking world, You know? So.
David: And, and how, how did you choose your all three technical, You know, very successful technical people. How did you choose who was gonna have which role?
Vanja: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a great question. You know, and, and when we [00:05:00] started this, uh, you, You know, uh, that wasn’t really differentiated and, and somehow in talking to investors, I guess it came out that, You know, I’ve been more on the business side. I was a, You know, had some GM responsibilities when I was at Airbnb and, and I would do the, the, the CEO.
And, and You know, initially I, I don’t know how I was feeling about that, You know, and maybe, maybe, You know, I felt like, well, that’s okay. Maybe I’ll do it for a while. Uh, y You know, but it wasn’t set in my mind that I’ll be the, the, the, the, the, the CEO. And then, You know, Hema has this amazing, You know, touch with people and, You know, she was the obvious choice to, to run engineering for us, which, which is by far the largest function.
URI is obviously on the, on, on the technical side, but You know, initially I think we were kind of learning how to work with each other and, and it’s really important to establish those swim lanes because, You know, I, I also run engineering teams [00:06:00] before, and then I was getting very involved in, in some of that, and I realized that we are bumping into each other.
So I think it, it’s important when you have founders that have similar background. To establish swim lanes and to say, okay, I’m doing this and you’re doing that. And I’m, although I have experience in that area, I can render judgments, but I will not go and, and, and try to do things that somebody else is doing.
And, and You know, that, that took a couple of months to, to, to come to that realization. But, You know, since then, I think we have established GreenLake. But You know, as founders we’re involved in everything and You know, obviously you take a look at everything. Um, but, but still focus area is a focus area.
David: You stepping into this CEO role? You, you mentioned you had some GM functions you had, but
Vanja: Mm-hmm.
David: the CEO of a company, You know, uh, startup from the beginning, do you think? Is something you thought would be [00:07:00] easy, but turned out
Vanja: Mm-hmm.
David: be difficult.
Vanja: Uh, You know, I feel that, uh, You know, experienced. More senior people, um, getting into this role. We underestimate the amount of things we need to learn. Right? And it’s just like looking backwards. Um, I realize, You know, how I would say naive, I was in certain areas, right? And it’s like, um. Like building a Go-to-market function, for example.
It’s, it’s as complex as building an engineering function, but from outside it looks easy. You know, for example, uh, hiring a CRO, right? Um, it, it, our current CRO I interviewed 37 people, for example, to hire. Yep.
David: Wow.
Vanja: [00:08:00] so, but, uh, you, you, you think You know things and, You know, for technical people, for me, I would quickly assess what people can do because I’ve hired hundreds of those in my career, right?
Um, but for Go-to-market function, You know, I, I, You know, I, I hired and I’m, I, honestly, I made some mistakes. And then people say, Hey, here is somebody you talk to and this is how you’re gonna learn what’s good. And then you talk to a couple great CROs and I come out of there and I’m like, I still don’t know how to hire somebody that’s gonna be good for me.
And then if you turn that around, if you’re a CRO and now you need to hire A CTO, would talking to two good CTOs. Give you enough information to hire somebody. No. Right. It’s like, yeah, this is great people. But it’s like, it still, it takes a long time to understand how these things work. [00:09:00] And, and, and, You know, I, I felt lost at some point and it’s just like, You know, what am I looking for here?
And, and what is it gonna, You know, what’s gonna come out of this? And I feel that.
David: CROs, I mean CROs of all the functions. ‘cause they’re so good at selling of all the functions, they’re, they’re one of the hardest to interview. I think if you have no experience interviewing you, you interview them, you’re like, damn, these, they know what they’re talking, You know, they’re,
Vanja: I know, I know. They’re good at selling, so they sell themselves. Yeah. I mean, but even, even other functions, I mean, You know, it’s, it’s like I used to, You know, HR, marketing and, and You know, everything that’s outside and, and plus there’s a lot of jargon. Uh, there’s a lot of different trends that happen at the time.
Is like P-L-G-P-L-G or, or, or, or top down sales. You know, this, this all changes. You know, somebody tells you. PLG is, is is what you have to do. And then somebody else tells you, no, no, no. PLG will get you to 50 million. And then you’ll stall it. It’s like [00:10:00] all these different opinions and, and You know, you, you hear, and at the end of the day, you just have to make a decision and hire somebody because You know, otherwise you, You know, stretching it for too long,
David: So you’ve, you’ve taken the team. How big is the team now approximately? 60 people. So you’ve taken this from zero to 60, and of course you’ve had very large teams in the past, but again, you’re, you’re building from scratch here. What, what is the attribute, if you had to really boil it down to like the thing that you look for in the people that you hire at this kind of a company compared to an Airbnb homes or Pinterest?
Like what, what, what is that attribute that you think is at this stage so important?
Vanja: I, I think, You know, small companies. Um, I just read somebody, there is a new term, I think it was Crunch Engineer, right? It’s not a vibe coating. It’s a, it’s, it’s a self-starter. And I think, You know, it’s, it used to be the 10 x sir. And then I don’t know the progression of things, but, but basically I would boil it [00:11:00] down to aptitude and motivation.
You know, it’s like the world is changing so fast and, You know, technology in the last few months has changed so much, uh, that I feel that experience matters less than it used to. If
David: Hmm.
Vanja: you have, uh, somebody who is really smart and really motivated, they can learn it on the task very quickly. And so I would say small companies should look for people who are just smart, willing to work hard.
And You know, hard work is back in fashion, it seems like, especially in the Valley. Right.
David: Mm-hmm.
Vanja: Um, because then that compensates for, for, for everything. Like in, in terms of, You know, on the technical side. I mean, what you can build now with, with these new tools is it’s literally like, [00:12:00] like having. You know, a whole team working for you overnight.
David: Hmm.
Vanja: it’s amazing.
David: a good, it’s a really good point of the speed of change now, the experience from. years ago may or may not of translate. I mean, of course in some areas there’s, there’s value in that, but, but, but on, on the general kind of level of what you’re looking for, someone who can pick things up.
Maybe they have had 20 years of experience, but they can pick things up quickly and they have that work
Vanja: Right. So I mean that’s, You know, again, after theater motivation, You know, but I, You know, I want to be a little bit controversial, but I think experience matters less.
David: Um, if you think about, You know, so, so another thing, you, you’ve been able to raise a
Vanja: I.
David: of money and from the best investors in the world. Was that very easy for you, upfront, like when you went out to [00:13:00] raise your pre-seed or seed, was that, was that a very easy process for you guys?
Vanja: Uh, yeah, it was very easy, uh, thing for us, but that has it downsides as well, because, You know what I call that? For us, that was the honeymoon phase. Like, oh, You know, you start a company and even today I think, You know, the environment is like that. There’s, there’s, there’s a lot of companies that have that honeymoon.
You go in, you make a story. You know, you have a vision and, and you kind of get the money. You know, somebody once told me that you, you, you do your best work when you’re running out of money. So, so I think it, it was very easy to raise the money, but that also probably slowed us down a little bit in initially like we would, we’re building a platform and You know, the technical work is really fulfilling.
Um, but at the end of the day, you’re building a business and a business needs to make money. And, and, [00:14:00] and that gets very different once you get to the front line. You know? And then because people will tell you how smart they are, how smart we are, then they want to talk to us and everything. But will they open their pocketbook and pay for it?
That’s the ultimate test, right?
David: And so these inve, You know, so to your point about being, I’m gonna guess, I don’t know, but I’m gonna guess that it was relatively easy because
Vanja: Yeah. Right,
David: around, you’ve done some amazing things. Um, did you go to the investors, did the investors come to you? I mean, how, how that very, very
Vanja: Uh,
David: like.
Vanja: we, we, we, we went through our network and, You know, went through a few investors and, You know, that was 21. It, it was a, You know, good time for, for getting capital as it’s now. So for, for ai. And so, You know, people would offer and say, Hey, You know, let’s, let’s, let’s do this. So, and, and I think, again, I think a lot of people who are raising [00:15:00] money now will get in a, You know, a little bit harder situation in a few years.
So, and my suggestion would be
David: Understatement.
Vanja: right, and my suggestion would be, regardless of how much money you have in the bank, just get out there and try to make money as soon as you can.
David: Hmm. can you talk a little bit about. Kumo just can, can you give a little bit more description of what the product does, what the platform does?
Vanja: Yeah, so lemme give you a little history of why we are doing what we are doing. So I spent the last 20 years, 25 years in this valley and You know, I went from, You know, IBM, Yahoo, Google, Pinterest, Airbnb, and, and looking backwards in my career, it’s just felt like it’s a dejavu every place I went. You know, the company would collect data and then we would use that data in the product to improve the product and, You know, improve the user experience, improve revenue.
Right. Um, the first data that we [00:16:00] started collecting on the enterprise side, and, and still the most common is, is relational tabular data. So that’s what you put in several, You know, in your data warehouse, in your transactional database. And why do we collect tabular data is because it’s suitable to describe entities and events.
So, You know, e-commerce site, you have customers, you have products, you have transactions, clicks, And so on. So basically you capture the history of the enterprise with your tabula data. Now, over my career, it’s almost dejavu. Every company I went with have tabular data and then we’ll try to use it in some way.
You know, either to recommend things, to rank things and, and, and, And so on. You know, maybe the items changed. You know, sometimes there were properties, sometimes there were products or ads, but, but every time we were trying to select things for, for users and, And so on, and this always took an effort of multiple people [00:17:00] building machine learning models and, You know, then deploying in production and with enormous effort.
But the benefits were very clear. And so with. The new technologies in, in AI coming specifically with transformers and foundation models, we wanted to bring the same benefits that Transformers brought to text to tabular relational data. So what we do at Kuma is we have an AI enterprise prediction engine.
You just pointed in your data and it’s able to give you predictions out of the data, any kind of prediction. Without having to go through the machine learning cycle, but You know, the same way that chat GPT can, you can ask any questions and get back, You know, text result with Kuma Foundation model. You can ask any predictive question and it’ll give you back a predictions based on, on your enterprise data [00:18:00] without machine learning, without training a specific model.
So that’s a long, longer kind of answer of, You know, where we started and, and, and why we did this.
David: Um, when you think about. This kind of a product. And, and everyone’s been, there’s been a lot of conversation in the world about, You know, the pricing models and the changing models of how you, how you price. Can you talk about how, how do you think about that with this type of a business? Um, is this a usage based, is this a seat based?
Is this a amount of data based? Like, how, how do you think about that? Has you, have you had the same pricing model from the beginning? Have you changed it? Like, can you, ‘cause I feel like that’s a topic that. We haven’t talked about too much on the show, but I get a lot of founders saying like, well, I got, I can’t price by seat anymore because that’s just not how people buy.
That thing is dead, You know? And then I’m gonna use usage, and then they get no usage and then they wonder. So I’m just curious like how you think about that.
Vanja: Y You know, this is a, a very, very [00:19:00] complex question, David. Um, it, it depends on several factors. I think pricing is, You know, very tied to the product and how products use, and what value the product provides. But it’s also tied to the, You know, to the atmosphere there, what people are used to. What other products are priced and You know, if you, if you try to invent something very new and people will bulk at it, it’s like, I don’t understand this.
And so I, I think you have to stick in some channels of how people price other products while figuring out a way to explain the value and how your price correlates to the value that people get. You know, um, And so that’s the balance. You know, I think today people are used to paying, You know, there’s few predominant pricing [00:20:00] models, You know, per seat consumption based, and, and this all, they, they all have pros and cons, uh, of, for, for, for a company.
Uh, we, uh, toyed a little bit with a pure consumption based pricing, but. It, it felt impractical, uh, in several ways. And, and, and You know, specifically for a small company like ours where you need to also show predictable revenue. It’s really hard to, to count it as a RR. And so we chose to kind of compromise here, um, where we have a platform fee that’s a fixed fee for a year that is a predictable revenue for us.
And then it includes some consumption with it. And then, You know, there is, there’s consumption on the top. And, and we, we, we have tweaked this a bit. As, as we, we went along. Um, initially [00:21:00] we did try to do value-based pricing as well, where you say, Hey, here’s the benefit you’re getting from the product. And we would take something that did not fly even when, You know, the counterparts on the other side were willing to consider it, but then it’ll go to legal and finance, it just stops, right?
‘cause, You know, anything does not have. Uh, You know, kind of bounded predictable box on cost is really hard to motivate with CFOs on the other side. And so, yeah, so you set also something that’s realistic that allows you to get some, some predictable revenue and it gives you some upside with, uh, with more consumption and, and, and value, I think then, then you’ve checked all the boxes.
David: I think I, my opinion actually is, I think that that is a model that more and more people are gonna, I think the pure consumption, uh, I don’t, I, just think we’re looking at a lot of companies right now that are reporting a [00:22:00] RR as their consumption revenue. And it’s not, it, it, it is just not. I mean, um, and I think on the flip side, I do think that the per seat pure, like buy it if you don’t use it to, like, I, I also don’t fully agree, You know, with, with that.
But I think there has to be both. By the way you’re saying for the company, for the customer, but also for the company, You know, both, I mean, both sides have to have, if you want to be able, if they want you to be able to build a sustainable company and you want them to be able to have some. around cost to their, You know, to their finance team.
Like there’s something in the middle. Anyway, I, I, I, this is a very, I feel like this is a very important topic right now because I also hear people, no, we’re gonna do outcome based. The outcome based stuff is just. It sounds good. In theory. It really does sound good. I I I, my biggest like turning point at BetterCloud was when we realized like the price has to match the value.
Like we, it took a long, it, we literally changed pricing 12 times in 14 years. It was [00:23:00] like the craziest but matching that is what matters, but then started to price based on it. Like it’s, it’s like you said. I don’t know how that gets approved. I don’t know how that’s scalable. I don’t it. It’s, yeah. Anyway.
Vanja: I, I mean, the, the thing is that you have to focus on adoption. Uh, either way, You know, consumption based pricing gives you, uh, that laser focus on making sure that people use your product. And so, but on the other hand, even if you have a base price or commit to whatever it’s called, if, if people don’t use your product, you won’t get a renewal next year.
David: Yeah. Yeah.
Vanja: So And so, you have to focus and, and You know, it’s like if people don’t use, use your product, it won’t be like they’ll start using it tomorrow. You know, it takes months and it takes effort and it takes pinging and, You know, organization have inertia. So, so you, you have to focus you, if you don’t do consumption based pri pricing, you have to be [00:24:00] very, very focused on making sure that you get usage of your product.
You know, the renewal comes and you’re done.
David: It’ll catch up to you somewhere. You’re gonna
Vanja: Right, right. So require, You know, disadvantages. So we found a mixture of those,
David: I
Vanja: um,
David: I
Vanja: to be able to, to check those boxes that I mentioned before.
David: So one, one of the things, um, I think I mentioned this when we, when we first spoke, is that, um, I’ve had people ask me. Listeners, I’ve literally gotten text messages. Can you ask the guests how they got their first customers? Like, You know, people who are starting out right now have, no customers have an idea.
Maybe an MVP, maybe not even an MVP, and they’re like, how do I even get the first cu, like where, where do I even start? Can you talk about, for you, where did you get your first five 10 customers from?
Vanja: Yeah. I wanna say, look, that’s one of the advantages of being a 50 plus founder, right? You know, people, right?
David: [00:25:00] That’s a good point. That’s a valid point.
Vanja: So, You know, I want to advocate for, for, for this group, right? So, so for us, I mean obviously we, You know, we, it started with, with with our network and, uh. And, You know, trying to get people to, to give us some feedback. And, and I think that that was probably also, um, easier for us. Um, but that’s also a trap as well.
You know, it cannot, you cannot be, you cannot just sell to people, You know. Right. And, and this is what I got an advice a while back, is like, you have to, You know, your sales team needs to be able to sell your product without you and explain to people the benefit and, and make sure that. You, you build something that people wanna buy without you as a founder or you as a experienced executive, that people want to talk to you and trust you And so on.
And so, I, I think that makes things easier initially [00:26:00] than, You know, then you pay price for it if you, if you lean into it too much.
David: That that is good advice actually, that that is good advice of where a lot of founders, they say, well, I got the F, You know, I got 10 customers, I got 15 customers. Why can’t this rep that I hired 15 customers? You know? And it’s, and and I, I think founders a lot of times, I think a lot of us have, I don’t know, imposter syndrome, whatever.
We have this feeling of like. My title, who I am doesn’t really matter, but in reality, when you call a prospect or someone that you’re connected with and say, I’m the founder and CEO of this company, just the title, and whether
Vanja: Yeah.
David: or not, just the title
Vanja: I mean, David, that’s why you’re talking to me, right? Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Vanja: The other trap, I think, as a founder that is easy to fall in is that it, it, it’s always easier to watch somebody do things and criticize because when somebody is, [00:27:00] is like into something, into a conversation, you’re focused and, and your brain, You know, has to do that.
And observe yourself. If somebody’s watching you from the side, they’ll always find something wrong. And so, You know, it’s just like if you, but then you’re a woodpecker, you just speak on people and brain all the time. You know, it’s just like you have to focus you. You have to let people do things and believe that, You know, it can give feedback, but it’s normal that you feel that people did not do as well as you when you watch them from the side.
Because you simply have more cycles to, to see what’s, what’s, what’s wrong there because you are watching, you’re not talking. Right.
David: Yeah, that’s a.
Vanja: And, and letting go is really hard as a founder is it is like I can always do things better than others. Right.
And.
David: it’s also, let’s be honest, it’s also really hard to find people. It’s really hard to find people who are not the founders who are gonna [00:28:00] care as much, who are gonna be
Vanja: You cannot.
David: it. It’s
Vanja: Right.
David: I, I guess by just the physics of like, by just definition, you, you can’t, You know, and, and, uh, I think that is, that’s a thing that I see with a lot of founders who hire their salespeople and then they’re like, why don’t they have the same passion?
Why don’t they, You know, talk about this? It’s like, it’s not their company, even if they are the best salesperson.
Vanja: Well, look, I dream about this company maybe five nights a week.
David: Yeah.
Vanja: It is like this night I woke up and, You know, I was dreaming about something, right. Work related. So, and, and that level of intensity is like you, you don’t find many people that can sustain that if they’re not farmers.
David: Yeah, exactly. Let me, let me ask you, you mentioned about the, starting the company at, at 50 years old, You know, or over 50. Um, do you think that that’s an advantage or do you think that that’s a, like. [00:29:00] In this exact case, it definitely is an advantage Network. Fundraising, You know, is, is that how, or you think it’s, it doesn’t matter.
Age doesn’t matter.
Vanja: Um, I, I, I think at any age, I, I think age matters and experience network and all of that. You know, prior success in, in something, even if it’s not a another company, matters a lot. I think, um, You know, settled personal circumstances, You know, financially, You know, kids up to school.
David: Yeah.
Vanja: Uh, You know, it, it matters, right?
I mean, I, I jokingly sometimes ask people, why would you like to join Kuma if you really love your kids? Right? So, because You know, if you love them, you wanna spend time. And so, um, on, on the other hand, you need to understand that this will not gonna, or, or, You know, if you want, truly want to build a lasting business, it’s not gonna happen overnight.
Right. And, and you wanna [00:30:00] be in it for, for long term. And you wanna see yourself, You know, at 50, if you start a company at 50, You know, ask yourself if you would see yourself. 60 year olds still pushing the car uphill. Uh, I, I think it’s, You know, and then there’s health. There is, You know, uh, maybe you feel like you don’t have to work, but You know, and you need to make sure you manage that as well.
Uh, if you are in it, you need to be in it a hundred percent.
And so, um, I love this and I, You know, I love doing this. I wouldn’t do anything else. I wouldn’t be on the beach. I could be on the beach now, but I wouldn’t be on the beach. I would, I would rather be here.
David: Hmm.
Vanja: to be comfortable with a choice.
David: the thing I didn’t think about, actually, just so you said it just now about the kids. started my company when I was 29. Didn’t, wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, and of course I did over time and sacrificed. A lot [00:31:00] for the first six, seven years of their lives. Basically not seeing them or not seeing all the important moments or anything, but you don’t really think about that.
Then there’s this moment probably in your thirties, forties where you’ve got the kids and they’re at home and you have, but then you actually have this period where the kids leave and you again have this moment of. Kind of the time and the, and the, the, the flexibility to, to spend it all on work. It, it’s really the toughest is in the window,
Vanja: exactly.
David: that, in those peak
Vanja: Exactly.
David: side in different
Vanja: Mm-hmm.
David: It would be an interesting chart to kind of look at of when founders are successful. I be, I bet you there’s something, ‘cause, ‘cause that middle period is very, um, tell people very honestly, it’s, it’s why I haven’t started a company again.
Now my kids are 10 and 12. I know what it does take, and it’s, you said 150% in like a, in many ways 150%. You know, it’s, it’s uh, not just with your family, [00:32:00] but with your, your own self and your own. Like, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s all consuming.
Vanja: And You know, as they say, you gotta be a little crazy to start a company because you gotta believe in something that’s unlikely. Right. I mean, because most companies fail, right? By far. You gotta really, I mean, it’s almost like religion is a belief. It’s faith, You know, in many different ways. With, with, with, with without, You know, without specific, maybe it’s, it’s irrational in many different ways.
David: Hmm. Um, let me ask you, as you, as the company continues to grow and you’ve evolved as a CEO from. You know, you and your co-founders to a real company now with customers and employees and everything. Um, how do you keep kind of leveling yourself up on this journey? How do you keep getting better? How do you keep rising up to the next stage?
Vanja: Yeah. And [00:33:00] specifically for me and coming back to, You know, founding a company with, with experience, right? As more senior person, I think, You know, everybody says it’s, it’s very important that to you learn fast and that, that is important, I think is you, You know. But I think what’s really important to is to unlearn things.
You know, in some ways experience can be a burden as well. It’s like I’m used to doing things this way. And, and this is how it’s gonna be done. But the key question is, can you unlearn? And, and then, You know, a companys is growing, is is like a child. It’s very different at every stage. It’s uh. It requires different handling.
It’s, it’s, it’s like a different sport altogether. Playing and, and, You know, you need to kind of evolve with it, um, and say, okay, You know, I’ve, I’ve, we’ve been doing things this way for the last six months here and, and this is not gonna work [00:34:00] anymore and we need to move forward. Um, I, I, I think the complexities of small companies are as.
Hard as running, You know, thousands of people, teams. It’s, it’s the very different kind of things, but the overall complexity is it’s, it’s at the same level. And so, You know, understanding conceptually what’s happening. And sometimes it takes a while, You know, and you can look backwards and say, oh my God, You know, here is a point of change.
And I didn’t notice it until month later. You know, and, and it’s easy to, to say, Hey, we should have done this better. But, but You know, it, it just doesn’t work like that. You know, you need, you need to be aware of those points of change. You need to be, You know, all the time watching for it and, and, and, and making sure that you respond to it quickly.
David: Hmm. Hmm.
Vanja: But I think unlearning, [00:35:00] unlearning is definitely one thing that’s really important for, for CEOs.
David: I think that’s good advice. I, I think that’s even, again, more so even that advice is when you’ve worked at really big companies and had these really big teams and you’ve had really, You know, you’ve had this, this machinery that you’re in, and then you kind of take a step back and start from scratch and with no team and no infrastructure. It is unlearning because otherwise if you go at the pace you were going at the big company, I mean, you’ll never, you’ll never achieve anything, You
Vanja: Right
David: Um
Vanja: we started here is like, initially we were doing like three months planning, and it, it, You know, initially you’re building the basics of your product infrastructure And so on, so it, it, it works okay, but then, You know, the third time around it just completely broke up.
David: hmm.
Vanja: And it broke down because we started engaging customers and potential, You know, data [00:36:00] sets that we were getting in.
And it’s just like, then you need to respond so much quicker. Like three months is eternity. You know, so, so you bring with you something that, You know, and you start, You know, operationalizing on that, but then at one point it, it just completely breaks down. And if you, if you, if you try to be, if you’re rigid with it, uh, then, then, then you’re in a lot of trouble.
David: I, I just, uh, recently I published a episode with, um, the CEO of Pom, Palm Palm Pilot and then handspring, Donna Dubinski, and she said the number one thing that she always looked for, that she always needed was just adaptability. You know, she said that was. The change and the speed and the things that are happening in the market and everything is just, that was the one thing she said that was in interviews, in everything, in her own kind of evolution.
And I think it’s, it’s, You know, you, you just have to stay on top [00:37:00] of that. Be ready for those changes. Be aware of those changes to your point before, You know, um, uh, what, what. Across the, You know, over this, the period of this journey. You’ve talked about a bunch of the challenges you face. What is the biggest challenge you faced throughout this journey and, and how’d you overcome it if you did?
Vanja: Uh, in, in, in Kumos journey, right? That’s what we are.
David: Yeah.
Vanja: I, I think. For, for us as technical co-founders, uh, You know, getting Go-to-market, understanding, You know, what’s the right level of innovation, what the market accepts, and, and, and understanding how to talk about the product as well. Um. You know, and, and, and kind of getting to the fog of, as I said, advice that you get.
Uh, I, I think that’s. That [00:38:00] was the, the, the hardest thing and getting traction and then starting selling and, and, and, And so on. I think that was the, uh, the hardest thing for us. And again, look, we as, as more senior co-founders, You know, um, maybe other things that some other founders would, would run into, like hiring, for example, team building and, and
David: for sure. Yeah.
Vanja: fundraising.
Uh. Well, I would say, uh, fundraising has also been a, you, You know, something where is learning. You go through the honeymoon phase, that’s easy. But then, You know, when you come to the growth phase, um. You just meet completely different people. And You know, I think fundraising may be also another challenge because, You know, when you’re working with venture teams, then you go for a vision and then, You know, as technologists you can point, You know, paint the vision and, and you clear about what you can bring to the table.
And then you go to the growth people and they’re just numbers, right?
David: Right.
Vanja: You know,
David: A hundred percent.
Vanja: character here, [00:39:00] but You know, just.
David: that’s true. That’s
Vanja: It’s, but it’s, it’s a lot about finance and numbers and growth And so on. So it’s like you, you move from one planet to another. Right. And,
David: Mm-hmm.
Vanja: uh, You know, that’s, that’s been also learning for us as well.
David: let’s take a step back. You know, we look, we look at Kumo big picture, three years, it’s 2029. What does the company look like?
Vanja: Yeah. I mean, we wanna be the prediction engine of the world. That means that every prediction, every consumer, every enterprise is gonna make on all available data instantaneously so that you can make decisions. Imagine this, You know, global system that uses, You know, knows what data is available at this point, and you can ask in a natural language and you can get a prediction back.
David: Hmm.
Vanja: Instantaneously. [00:40:00] So I think that’s how it’s gonna be in the future. We’re gonna collect ever more data, that data will be available and then everything you want to use that data. And You know, most of the tabular relational event, historical data we collect only ‘cause we want to use it to predict the future.
Imagine having this, You know, almost like a crystal ball that will allow you to get a prediction instantaneously. And this is for humans and for agents.
David: Can you gimme a couple of use cases? You know, again, we’re looking out three years. What’s, what’s an example? You know, 1, 2, 3 examples of how this manifests itself in how people are operating, eating.
Vanja: Yeah, I mean, simple. Um, I walk into a store and the store recommends me items, or I’m a doctor in er. And I see a patient and I wanna understand if this patient, You know, what’s the probability of this patient gonna have a heart attack in the next [00:41:00] 30 minutes? And I can just ask and, You know, or what’s the probability of having sepsis, um, after surgery or, uh, You know, I’m, uh, drilling for oil and I wanna understand.
What’s the probability if I, You know, I should drill here somewhere else and, and, and
David: hmm,
Vanja: hit oil. In every industry, in every level, you have data that you collected. You want to use it to make that prediction, and you use Kuma for instantaneous predictions.
David: Uh, it’s amazing. I mean, it makes sense. It’s it Well, how you No, I’m saying when you describe it, You know, you think about the data, you think, and that prediction piece. Um, it, it’s what everyone wants, but has been very hard to get at
Vanja: Yeah, and conceptually,
David: of Yeah.
Vanja: conceptually asking questions about the past and the future is the same, right? I mean, you can ask a question and say, Hey, what did David buy in the last three months? Right? [00:42:00] And so that we can answer today with existing data warehousing technology. You can ask the same questions, what will David buy in the next three months?
But that requires a completely different technology now. And You know, one is, one is called analytics, the other one is called, uh, You know, AI or machine learning. But conceptually, you wanna be able to just casually ask a question and get a, You know, a real answer, not hallucinated based on all available data, instantaneous.
David: I want to transition to your personal, your, your, your background. Where are you from originally?
Vanja: Yeah, I grew up in, in Macedonia. It’s part of, uh, former Yugoslavia, uh, Southeastern Europe, uh, between Greece and, and, and, and Serbia. Um. Yeah, I mean, uh, You know, we were, I would say by today’s standards, probably poor, but, You know, all basic needs were fulfilled, You know, um, math,
David: [00:43:00] you go to school there? Is that, is that where you went to university or did you go somewhere else?
Vanja: I went there through my third year of high school and then came to the US for my fourth year of high school. And, uh, I, I came to Shelby, North Carolina. Uh, that was an interesting transition
David: Why?
Vanja: as an exchange student in high school.
David: And then you stayed and.
Vanja: Uh, no. I went back, uh, and then I, I came back to the US for my, for grad school in Florida. Then I went back again, and then the third time in, in 2000. Um, I, I think I reported to work at IBM research, uh, a few days before the market, the.com crash.
David: Wow. And did you stay there at IBM through that? Like,
Vanja: I stayed for six years at IBM.
David: wow. And did you, do you. Did you see something early in your career, in your life, You know, uh, in your career [00:44:00] like that you wanted to become a founder at some point in your, in your life, or did you just kind of,
Vanja: Um,
David: happened over time?
Vanja: yeah, I mean, I, I always thought I would be a professor. It’s like there were a lot of professors in my family in, in, You know, languages and philosophy And so on, and somehow I was indoctrinated that I’m gonna be a professor and, and, and,
David: I.
Vanja: and I did get a teaching job. Um. At, uh, in Sweden when I did my PhD.
Um, but I was kind of restless, so, so it’s, it’s interesting that, You know, we have this, or some of us, this predefined conception of what you’re gonna be, but, but, but somehow you get this call of the wild, You know, just like it’s calling you to do something else. I came to IBM actually to stay for a year to come back and teach.
Uh, but then I stayed six years. But then when it came to IBM, You know, there’s a lot of people that were there for their whole career. You know, IBM had [00:45:00] pension system at the time, You know, so for a while I felt I’m gonna be at IBM probably for my career. And then this whole internet thing was happening on the side.
And then okay, uh, after six years, I, I left and, You know, maybe I overstayed almost every job I, I had in our careers. And I think that’s kind of, when you’re in a comfort zone, you, you stay in it. Um, um, but, uh, I was looking at other people, uh, doing companies, but I wanted to do research. So I, I, You know, that’s what I did for 15 years in my career is through IBM, Yahoo, and Google.
Um, but one day I woke up and I’m like, I don’t wanna do research anymore. You know, I’ve published enough papers and I just don’t want to do this. I need to move on and, um, when I, when I left Google Research, which was a great place at the time, and, and founded my first company, um. I, I did, [00:46:00] You know, again, I couldn’t sleep for a few nights, You know, because at once you, you leave all this, You know, nicely cushy kind of paid job and everybody’s telling you, You know, especially when you leave a company like Google, a lot of people talk to you.
You know, a lot of executive talk to you, try to retain you, and, and they’ll tell you kind of that, You know, you might be making a big mistakes.
And then, You know, I started commuting, You know, from Los Goddess to San Francisco is like an hour and a half each way sitting, sitting on the train and thinking maybe this was a mistake. Right.
David: Wow. And do you, do you think, if you think about the IBM, the Google, all those experiences, do you, is there like a moment in your career that you can point to, like, not that you decide you wanna be a founder, but just like the biggest break in your career, You know, did you have some moment where it’s like, this was the break, you [00:47:00] published something very big, you got, is some person gave you a chance to work on something that you didn’t have, You know, otherwise the, the right to
Vanja: I,
David: on.
Like, was there
Vanja: I, I,
David: like
Vanja: I, I, I think you have to make a lot of breaks. Like my first break was, I published a paper in 99 in a database conference. Uh, I put a suit on. Uh, I went to the conference, uh, that was in Edinburgh, and I was chasing around the conference. My future boss at IBM trying to talk to her. And, You know, she ignored me for a while.
You know, I was, uh, as I said, I was overdressed, You know, all suited up and running around trying to. You know, get her to talk to me. And eventually she did talk to me and, and, and gosh, I mean, I’ve probably been so awkward at that age just being, You know, unable to talk to people. And, but You know, she gave me a chance.
I think that was my first break, and she gave me a job. And, um, we came here, um, at the time, make sure, You know, going back to, to Sweden in, in a, [00:48:00] my, You know, where my wife is from for in a year. But then, You know, we decided to, we wanna try to stay longer. And then I went to my boss and said, okay, I wanna stay.
I didn’t realize that, You know, it would require an interview and all of that re-interview and all of that kind of naive and, uh, managed to get the job. Um, and, You know, I would say e every, every time you leave a place, it, it requires a, a to push yourself and you come into a completely new environment.
And I feel that. Uh, You know, even on the technology side, just like I was a database person, when I become search infrastructure person, become machine learning, data mining and, and You know, just like you have to push yourself to go through these transitions, um, and the kind of all com compound actually toward where you go, uh, to be a founder.
Um, I mean, You know, being in the valley just see so many people doing [00:49:00] it. At some point you’re like, I want to try this. And uh, that’s when I was at Google. I was like, uh, let’s see what it is. You know,
David: It’s still, but it’s still hard to fight that inertia when you talk about the Google one, especially. I can imagine. I know a lot of Googlers and I have some friends who’ve worked there for a long time. There’s a lot of inertia.
Vanja: it’s a real.
David: paid that way, when you’ve got the perks, when you’ve got the brand, when you’ve got the, You know, you, you, it, I, believe, I’ve never worked at a company like that, but I believe that
Vanja: I mean,
David: to break the inertia.
Vanja: it’s,
David: is hard.
Vanja: Google is an amazing place and it has so many amazing people. Right. And, um, You know, I think leaving Google at that point, or big company, You know, other big companies is that, You know, they are, things are so polished on the technology side, on the processes side, And so on. When you come out from that, such a big environment.
Um, it’s really hard [00:50:00] to adapt to the imperfect world because the world outside is like, uh, You know, here at Kumo, You know, if, if you come, if you compare to, You know, larger companies, everything is broken, right? And so I think being a founder is, you just have to be able to, to live with that, um, You know, state of.
Of of things are broken around you because you have to be laser focused in what you fix and what you just live with today. And maybe tomorrow that changes. Maybe tomorrow you have to go and fix that, but you won’t be able to fix everything at the same time. And that, that requires prioritization, which is whole different ballgame than than big companies.
And as I’ve hired people from bigger companies, I think. Um, You know, some, sometimes it works out and sometimes it does not,
David: Mm-hmm.
Vanja: it, it’s a big effort to, to, to adjust to small companies.
David: two [00:51:00] last questions. Um, what is it that drives you, You know, to start this company at, at, You know, and. you, like you said, you probably don’t need to start this company. You probably don’t need to, to be working as hard as you are. Like what drives you? I, I, I tell people, for me, it’s like when someone tells me I can’t do something, all you need to tell me.
And then I spend the rest of my life trying to prove that it’s something very deeply rooted in my, I don’t know why, but, um, like what is it that drives you?
Vanja: I like the way you described that. You know, like, dare me, I’ll do it. Well, for me it is like, uh, I just came back from a, the long weekend I was in Tahoe, right? And so. Um, I skied three days, um, and I haven’t skied in a while. I had a shoulder injury And so on, but I was, I’m very pleased for myself because I skied, You know, uh, seven, eight hours, uh, You know, first chair last year, the first two days, and, and why would I do that, right?
And so I, I’ll compare [00:52:00] life to skiing a little bit. Maybe. Um, when you go skiing, it’s a bad day. It’s raining or snowing, your legs are hurting. Now you go and do the moguls, it’s even worse, but you still do it, right? I mean, it’s a, it’s, it’s something that in spite of all the pain and suffering, it gives you some feeling of accomplishment when you, when you go through a new trail, when you, You know, figure out something you haven’t done before.
And, uh, and the same reason that I ski is the same reason I do this company. ‘cause it probably gives me a, uh, that sense of, of accomplishment. And, and I’m okay with taking some of the, You know, pain that comes with it.
David: Hmm.
Vanja: It is the game.
David: Good analogy. Good analogy. Um. Last question. Knowing everything You know today, all the experiences you’ve had in your life, in your career, what is the one piece of [00:53:00] advice you would go back and give yourself before you started your first job at IBM? I guess, You know, um, what, what is the, the, the one piece of advice you go back and give yourself?
Vanja: Don’t worry, it’ll happen. I feel like, You know, it’s like we, we all have that imposter syndrome all the time, right? And it just like, uh, I don’t know, it’s just worry too much about things. It’s just, You know, uh, work hard and enjoy life, You know? I was like,
David: Great advice.
Vanja: don’t obsess about the long term.
It’ll sort itself. Right.
David: Love it. thank you Vanya. Thank you so much for doing this. I, I really, I enjoyed this a lot.
Vanja: Thanks.
David: Awesome. Well, for those listening, hope you enjoyed. If you did, please share this out with your networks. Um, and we’ll see you for the next episode of not another CEO podcast.
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