Today Acquia, the company I co-founded in 2007 with Dries Buytaert announced that a majority investment in the company had been acquired by Vista Equity Partners. This is a dramatic next step for the company and team, and I could not be more pleased. I have always wanted to build a cornerstone company: one that would lastContinue reading “Reflections on Acquia following investment by Vista Equity Partners”
Category Archives: acquia
Acquia’s 10 year anniversary
Starting small, building huge This week marks ten years since I incorporated Acquia, the company that I count as the highest positive-impact business I’ve built. Yet, it wasn’t some incredible strategic, execution, or product skill on my part that made it happen; it is – of course – due to the people involved. I oftenContinue reading “Acquia’s 10 year anniversary”
Culture matters even at the start
A few days ago, Todd McKinnon asserted in a WSJ blog article that “long term success is not predicated on creating a world-class company culture.” He also states “Forget about cultural fit and instead get people in the door that can create a beautiful product and bring passion to the problems your company is out to solve.” My friend BobContinue reading “Culture matters even at the start”
Founding CEO succession
In both my venture-backed companies I was founding CEO; but wasn’t CEO forever. The data says this is quite typical. Noam Wasserman’s book The Founder’s Dilemmas, cites the following statistics out of 3,600+ startups surveyed (9,900 founders) over 10 years: Founding A-round B-round C-round D-round On its 3rd (or more ) CEO 0% 0% 9%Continue reading “Founding CEO succession”
Your child (company) will someday grow up and move away
I founded Acquia in 2007 by teaming up with Dries Buytaert. And in the years since then, we’ve succeeded in building up a really great team, forming a really great business, with amazing customers. As with many founding CEOs, there came a time for me to hire a CEO with experience in bigger companies andContinue reading “Your child (company) will someday grow up and move away”
JAB Ventures 