How Mohit Lad Built a $300 Million Company From Junk Computers

"Make sure you're building the business for the right reasons.

If you're building a business in the hope that you'll make a lot of money, that is not the right reason. That is a side-effect of when you build a successful business.

You're not going to do the right thing if you're building it to make a lot of money. For your customers or your employees.

So think about building it for the right reasons."

Thousand Eyes is one fo those hot, successful startups that you've probably never heard of with an unusual and not very Silicon-Valley like history. 

Mohit and his co-founder Ricardo Oliveira founded Thousand Eyes in 2010 and built a $300 million startup from discarded computers and an almost secret source of seed money.

Mohit originally started his journey in India where he began his studies, before moving to the US where he met up with Ricardo at UCLA. He never had an intention to start his own business, but life has a habit of taking you on unexpected journeys, and before long he and Ricardo set up Thousand Eyes. Fast-forward to 2018 and their clients include Twitter and Ebay, employ well over 130 staff and double stheir revenue annually. They've had VC's trip over themselves to invest but they initially resisted.

We talk about the power of broke and the focusing power that gives you, finding your first customers by solving problems and raising equity to scale - not just to survive.

Let's StartUp!