After 20 Years At Oracle He Raised $70 Million To Reinvent How Companies Analyze Data
Osama Elkady knows a thing or two about building multi-billion dollar companies. His startup helps them grow every day.
I had the great opportunity to interview Osama on a recent episode of the Dealmakers Show. He talked about growing as a leader when your company is growing by triple digits. Plus, the myths of big companies, overcoming being a small one, what you need to succeed, how much money you need, saying no to VCs and what you learn from working with Larry Ellison.
Elkady was born and grew up in Cairo. He says he was fortunate to get into one of the most prestigious universities in Egypt. At Ain Shams University he studied computer science and also got classes at the University of Maryland.
He got the chance to move from working on fax machines to the Macintosh, original Windows and big mainframes.
When he started working, he got the chance to travel to the US, to the Middle East and India.
Then he got a call that changed his life. Oracle had seen his work and reached out to ask him to work on a project for a couple of months.
They flew him out, gave him an apartment and car. He must have done well. Because they keep asking him to stay for another three months, and another. He became a director and senior member of the application development team. That turned into a 20-year gig.
At the time there were just two EL listings in the company phone book. Elkady and Ellison.
Then he helped them grow internationally, working with customers from Asia to the Middle East, Europe and back.
Most people only know the Larry Ellison depicted as the tough Samurai warrior in third party documentaries about him. Or the Larry Ellison that buys entire Hawaiian islands.
Elkady says he loved working with Larry and learned a lot from him. Like Steve Jobs, Osama says Ellison is not just smart and very technical but knows marketing too. He showed him how to be running sales and marketing very early and creating the future, and a leadership position in it.
He also says this iconic entrepreneur had a very open-door policy and would listen to the team. Something Osama has definitely carried with him to his own venture.
Not only does Elkady speak of a different side of Ellison than most have heard of, but he also has an incredible level of experience working with other giant companies.
While the challenges of corporate bureaucracy were certainly a big part of the reason that Osama decided to go out on his own to launch Incorta, he also sees big corporate giants not only wanting to innovate but is putting the tools in their hands to get instant, real-time results from it in minutes.
No matter how brilliant the idea is, starting something completely new in any massive bureaucracy is hard. At best, it is insanely slow. If you really want to change things, you’ve got to do it from the outside.
From the other hyper-successful founders we’ve had on the Dealmakers Show, that seems to be the status quo, whether you are talking about Google, Disney or anyone else.
In a startup, you can do things fast, and you don’t have to do them any particular way because that’s the way it’s always been done.
However, big companies are competitive. They are paranoid about their position in the future (or at least they should be). They know they need to be thinking ahead and harnessing new technology in order to maintain their competitive advantages. Even if they need results this quarter, and aren’t fast at developing new tech or even putting together reports themselves.
Osama says now a company that bet on Incorta’s technology five years ago has been able to streamline business and work in real-time. That has taken them from being just an $11B company to a $123B company.
One of the great perks of serving these big companies is that you are also able to generate really big revenues. If you are saving or making your clients billions of dollars, you can charge accordingly. With those types of numbers you can also afford to attract and build the team to support more of those big successful companies.
When Osama resigned from Oracle and made the leap of faith with his cofounders, they had no funding lined up. They just decided to go all in.
On day one they got out to visit customers. Between friends and family and their early sales, they quickly brought in over a million dollars. They were buying based on the prototype.
That funded building the real thing. It’s the best money you can get. They aren’t just giving you money. They are giving you resources and help.
Osama says step one for sales as a startup is selling your team. You’ve got to sell them on the dream. On how you’re going to change the world and things can be in five years from now.
When you start selling as a new startup he says it is all about trust. Your company has no reputation or recognition yet. Customers would be crazy to bet on you. So, it’s about personal connection.
He says one of the greatest hacks for that, especially in enterprise-level sales is to hire great sales leaders. Those who already have a network, have already sold to that network and have personal connections with your ideal customers.
After years of saying no to VC money they did finally take capital from Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures.
Listen in to the full podcast episode to find out more, including:
The importance of advisors · Prioritizing building a team · Why you always want to have two years of cash in the bank · Why you need to listen to everyone in your company · Why existing customers always come before acquiring new ones · How to connect with Osama · How to grow yourself when your company and team is growing over 100% per year
