Co-Founder & COO Okta, Frederic Kerrest: Zero to IPO
In the early days of Okta, co-founder Frederic Kerrest was courting a 3,000-person company in Louisiana, which was considering Okta and one other vendor. When he learned who he was up against, he said, “We love competing with them ‘cause we beat them every time.” That arrogant boast lost him the deal, and taught him a humbling lesson: Your confidence is not superior to your customer’s needs.
In this episode, Frederic and Joubin discuss literally walking down memory lane in San Francisco, who his new book “Zero to IPO” is for, the value of time, the happiest nations on Earth, why Frederic prioritizes writing personal thank-you notes, why it’s better to be lucky than good, pivoting to an upmarket strategy, the letdown of being at the top, the problem with “product-led growth” in enterprise, “sharpening the contradictions,” and staying present.
In this episode, we cover:
Why Frederic wrote “Zero to IPO,” and why he leads it with a story about failure (08:23)
Entrepreneurship is a pie-eating contest (13:07)
Frederic’s direct communication style and the dichotomy between time and money (15:19)
His passion for hockey, and why he used to park his car around the corner (24:35)
Getting thrown out of two Okta board meetings in a row (29:03)
Surviving awful quarters and service outages (36:10)
How Frederic’s arrogance lost him a huge early deal (42:20)
Would he build a company from scratch all over again? (45:39)
Why Frederic doesn’t take phone calls on the weekends and the “oxygen mask rule” (54:06)
“Nothing happens until somebody sells something” (57:20)
Is Frederic personally affected by Okta’s stock price? (01:02:09)
The key players who receive a “ball bearing award” at Okta (01:07:22)
How taking on additional projects and working with a professional coach has extended Frederic’s time at Okta (01:11:48)
Links:
Connect with FredericTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
20VC: Okta Founder Frederic Kerrest on Why You Want To Be A Monopolist In A Small Market, The Biggest Challenges in Scaling Okta To IPO and Being a16z's First Ever Fund Check
Frederic Kerrest is the Founder & COO @ Okta, the independent and neutral platform that securely connects the right people to the right technologies at the right time. To date Frederic has raised over $415m with Okta from some of the best in the business including Doug Leone @ Sequoia, Marc Andreessen @ a16z, a dear friend of the show in Mike Maples @ Floodgate, Aneel Bhusri @ Greylock and Vinod Khosla, just to name a few. Okta IPO'd in April 2017 at a stock price of $17, today they sit at $102. Before founding Okta, Frederic enjoyed roles with Hummer Winblad on the other side of the table as a VC and also at Salesforce and Sun Microsystems on the operations side.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Frederic came to found the now public Okta having spent time with Salesforce, Sun Microsystems and Hummer Winblad as a VC?
2.) What about an idea makes it worth pursuing and investing in? Does Frederic agree with the advice he was given, "it is 70% market, 20% people and 10% product"? When evaluating a market, what characteristics make for the most attractive markets? How does Frederic think about insertion points into markets? How does he evaluate market adjacencies? Why is it so good to be a monopolist in a small market?
3.) What were some of the hardest times Okta went through? How does Frederic determine the balance between vision and realism? How does Frederic as the leader personally deal with these challenging times? How can a founder determine from their hiring process whether they have product-market fit? What were the key turnings points that contributed to Okta's success? What did you have to get right to keep scaling?
4.) A little birdy told me there was an amazing story behind the a16z investment, what is that story? How did Frederic meet Marc and Ben and how did his relationship with them evolve over time? When analysing his investor base, where did each add real strategic value? What advice does Frederic give to founders today on the theme of investor selection? What should the core considerations be?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Frederic's Fave Book: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Frederic on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
a16z Podcast: Securing Infrastructure and Enterprise Services
The modern enterprise holds all sorts of applications, devices, and workflow needs. How should we be thinking about securing infrastructure -- and identity -- in this context, for entities like major news media outlets or financial institutions such as News Corp or NASDAQ?
Well, this episode of the a16z Podcast brings those voices together: Frederic Kerrest, cofounder and COO of Okta; Brad Peterson, CIO of NASDAQ; and Dominic Shine, CIO of News Corp ... in conversation with Ben Horowitz at our recent a16z Summit.
What's the big security picture for these types of organizations, and others? How should we prepare? Last year's DINE DDoS attack was just one glimpse of what's to come, providing a bit of a barometer read for what's currently working, and what desperately needs re-engineering. One interesting solution involves decentralization; but as we move towards such technology (like blockchain) in security, what will high-frequency trading look like? How will consumer relationships, transactions, UI/design security be reimagined? What areas and fundamentals should we focus on?
Stay Updated:
Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube
Find a16z on X
Find a16z on LinkedIn
Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify
Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts
Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg
Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.