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.

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