I am doing a series of interviews with entrepreneurs, VCS and technologists on entrepreneurship and this interview with Raj Jaswa is part of that series.
Raj Jaswa, is President of the The Indus Entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley. I was curious to find out about the early days in Silicon Valley (the late 1980s and early 1990s) when being an entrepreneur was not an easy task, especially if you were an immigrant. If you flashback to the early 1990s, getting VC money or going IPO was not an easy task either.
Raj was one of a handful of entrepreneurs of Indian origin in the early 1990s involved with the successful founding and IPO of a start-up called OPTi. What creative means did he and his founders use to make their start-up OPTi a success? How and where did they market their chips when the U.S. market was dominated by Intel and AMD?
After Opti, Raj then became involved in another company called Selectica, which had one of the best IPO debuts during the dot-com boom. In 2000, Raj was named to Forbes’ list of “Top CEOs: Corporate America’s Most Powerful People.”
After two successful companies, Raj is now involved with TiE and in mentoring a new generation of entrepreneurs. I asked him if he would be interested in starting a new company. Tune in to find out what he has to say.
Thanks Jaspreet and Jaspal for your encouraging feedback.
Jaspal…definitely something to think ahout …writing a book. Let me mull over it.
Keep listening and reading.
kamla
Good stuff indeed.
@Kamla I have one simple request to you.You are conducting interviews from long time and I can tell you you are doing great work.I would like you to go little futher.As you must have observe we have very few good technology writer who can write about start-up stories and as a aspiring entreprenuer always miss good books that tell stories that inspire and guide.Earlier we dint had much to talk about but now we are in much better position.
Why dont you write a book on indina start-up successs?
How about Infy story or wipro story or BPO start-up genepec story? Inven falied attempt can be used as guide to motivate, inspire and share knowledge about starting and growing business in indian environment.
From my reading on differnt blogs i feel there are poeple who what to be enterprenuer but lack guidenace,direction, motivation and there are numerous delimmas. People need constnt motivation a good story is write way to start.
Least I expect is good pdf of all your interviews.I am sure its not that difficult 🙂
(and I am sure I am expecting a lot 🙂 )
great stuff,
I had read about Raj, listening him was a good experience. The story matches my company early days a lot (the pre-revenue days ;-).
@kamla, great work. The way you conduct interviews , your promptness, your background knowledge and home-work done … make the interviews very interesting. I really appreciate your work.
“there is no substitute for passion” … well said.