RightWorks & Vani Kola - An IPO prospect?????
Woman's instinct makes $11 m in Silicon Valley
rightworks.com
San Jose
29 MARCH
VANI KOLA finds it surprising that she is queried by Indian-American women looking for advice as they confront various challenges and obstacles in launching their own companies in Silicon Valley.
There are more battle-tested entrepreneurs in the Valley, but Kola's doggedness in building her company, RightWorks, from almost nothing to one that has attracted over $11 million in venture capital has obviously struck a nerve with these women.
A graduate of the Osmania University of Hyderabad, with a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Arizona State University, Kola worked on real-time software applications for Empros, a division of Control Data Corp, and then designed a sales and inventory scheduling system for the pharmaceutical industry at Consilium before “getting a preliminary idea and deciding I would do something about it” in 1996.
Her first step was to do basic research at the Sunnyvale public library. “All I had was my gut instinct,” she told The Wall Street Journal. She did some consulting work in the networking industry, while she formulated her strategy.
The Journal article highlighted the combination of persistence, “corporate savvy and personal guilelessness” that led Kola to build RightWorks, formerly MediaKola, into a seller of a suite of products for corporations to automate and manage procurement.
RightWorks sells Web-based applications that help companies manage the acquisition of goods and services. ProcureWorks, its major product, sells for $250,000 to $500,000. RightWorks has three major companies in its client base — Fujitsu Computer Products of America, E-Tek Dynamics and Applied Materials. Though dealing with the white male corporate structure, Kola said she saw no problem or disadvantage. “I make it a non- factor. It often depends on the signals you send out. I don't see it as an obstacle and it rarely comes to mind as something I need to overcome,” she told the California newspaper India-West.
Kola said she understands many women entrepreneurs may still need some basic answers to some basic questions. They shouldn't feel foolish for asking. “There are no dumb questions. You've got to start somewhere,” she said. To get funding, Kola tapped the reservoir of expertise building steadily in the Indian-American entrepreneurial community in the San Francisco Bay Area. As with many recent success stories, there is a TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) connection. TiE leader Satish Gupta, then vice-president of corporate planning at Cirrus Logic in Fremont, “Is a friend and was an early mentor and cheerleader. He gave me a lot of support and introduced me to the TiE network,” Kola said. Another TiE leader, venture capitalist Prabhu Goel, said Kola made an impression on him when he was speaking at a forum on improving literacy in India. “She was persistent, but in an engaging, not obnoxious, way,” he said.
Goel became an advisor and, through him and Gupta, Kola was able to arrange a meeting with then TiE president Suhas Patil, chairman emeritus of Cirrus Logic and an investor in Indian- American-founded start-ups like Exodus Communications and CyberMedia.
Patil became an advisor and board member of RightWorks and also invested $2 million in seed money. Another member of the RightWorks board of directors is TiE member Nimesh Mehta, the former senior vice-president and general manager of Oracle's industry and front office applications division.
It was Mehta who introduced Kola to a former classmate, Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital. Leone and Mehta attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) together and Sequoia has launched some of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley.
Leone is known for his toughness and no-nonsense approach. When Kola made her first presentation, he criticised her for bringing him “a fuzzy R&D effort that didn't have any customers”, The Journal said. Kola appreciated the advice. “Doug was brutally honest. That's very valuable and very rare,” she said.
When she returned to industry people and asked for input on enterprise computing to determine the best application for her Web-based technology, officials from Cisco, Silicon Graphics and other leading companies responded. “There is no way people like that would give their time unless they thought she could understand their needs,” said Patil.
Kola focused on the Web-based procurement system and eventually struck a deal with Fujitsu. When she returned to visit Leone last year, she had 50 employees and many satisfied customers. Sequoia became RightWorks' first major venture capital investor, with a $4-million investment last November. Leone has also been named to the board. — IANS
economictimes.com
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