Assaf Resnick: the Building of BigPanda ($1.2 Billion Valuation)

In today's episode of Unicorn Builders, we speak with Assaf Resnick, CEO and Co-Founder of BigPanda, an AIOps platform that's raised $337 Million in funding.

The early days of BigPanda

BigPanda's story stands as a testament to agility, vision, and resilience it takes to build a successful technology company. It's a story that began far from its leadership position in the AIOps category. Assaf reflected on these early chapters, revealing, “We didn't start BigPanda looking to do AIOps. We actually started it in a radically different space doing advertising technology...” After a period of maneuvering through this space, a challenging realization hit the team. “And after a year and a half, we hit a wall...,” Resnick continued. Confronted with this significant hurdle, BigPanda faced a critical juncture: should they return the remaining funds to their investors or embark on an entirely new trajectory? Assaf remarked, “It was either, hey, give the rest of the money back to the investors, or pivot. Obviously, we decided to pivot."

However, the challenges did not end with this pivotal decision. Just as BigPanda was on the cusp of introducing their newly redefined offering, they faced another defining moment. “In 2015, we're about to launch the offering, and one of the big companies in our ecosystem offered to acquire us,” Resnick recounted. Faced with the tantalizing prospect of life changing money, the founding team grappled with the emotional weight of their journey. Assaf recollected, “We had just worked for two years to bring this thing to market, and we both wanted to see our baby see the light of day.” Ultimately, their commitment to their vision led them to decline the acquisition, “And so we passed on the acquisition.”

Given the success BigPanda has experienced over the years, that turned out to be a very wise decision and there's a lot that can be turned from Assaf's journey. Here are the top lessons that founders can learn.

#1: Right place, wrong time.?

“The first few years were hard because we were at the right place at the wrong time. We came to enterprises in 2014 and said, hey, you're moving to the cloud. That's going to bring a whole tsunami of data. You're going to have a hard time operating in those environments. Without AI. And the first two, three years we heard back from enterprises, hey, that's very interesting, but we're still experimenting with the cloud. We haven't put any kind of mission critical assets in the cloud, so we don't really have the problems that you're dealing with. And it took us, I think, wandering in the desert for till 2017, which is when the market kind of hit a tipping point and enterprises started really adopting public cloud. And that's when the pain that we solved started becoming really acute. But the first few years were tough.”?

??Actionable takeaway: Sometimes you will be too early. If that happens, you will need to perform a gut check to make sure you have strong enough conviction that the market will eventually see what you are seeing and there will be demand to solve the problem you are solving.?

#2: Celebrate valuation milestones then keep moving.?

”Crossing the billion dollar valuation mark was kind of a non-event for me. Friends and investors called me and congratulated me, and my parents were very proud and all that. It wasn't really an event for me because it's just a moment in time. And at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is, are you serving your customers? Are you bringing innovative technology to market? And as time has shown, valuations go up and down, multiples go up and down. That's really a function of a little bit about your success and a lot about where the market psychology is.?

But it's very dangerous to have your self worth based on your valuation, because those things, again, a lot of it is based on you, but a lot of it's not based on you. And so the only thing you can do is build a great company, build a great product, serve your customers. And so I was very clear with our employees, like, hey, this is awesome. This is a moment to celebrate. But it's kind of meaningless. It's just a moment in time." ?

??Actionable takeaway: Valuation milestones are important to celebrate but you cannot self-worth cannot be too tied to your valuation. Valuations will go up and down but what matters most is staying focused on your mission to serve your customers, employees, and shareholders.?

#3: Have a Category Story.?

"The category is AIOps for sure. And so it's how do you use AI in the spaces of operations? Now. Operations it Ops. That's a trillion dollar market. It's huge. And there's many subsectors of that market. And AI has a role to play in all of those subsectors. And so there's a lot of smart category creation that needs to go on in this space. So having world class people who think about positioning and messaging and category creation is essential. This is not just about technology. This is about category creation because it's such a big market that you have to be able to message it correctly."

??Actionable takeaway: Categories are how your customers make sense of an increasingly complex and noisy technology landscape. You need to know what category you are in and you need to be able to articulate your differentiated position within that category.

#4: You don’t have to coin your category name.?

“We did not coin the term AIOps to my knowledge. I think that Gartner coined that term. And I remember the day as soon as I read it, someone told me about it. I said to myself, yes, that's it. That's the term. AIOps. It's perfect. It says it all. And so were still a very young company. Nobody was doing what were doing, or very few people were. And we very quickly gleaned onto it and said, we think this is going to take off. And it has taken off.?

??Actionable takeaway: Many founders believe they are creating a category and spend a huge amount of time, energy and resources to come up with the perfect category name. Sometimes this works but often times, you are better off embracing a term the market is already using then make your push to establish your position as the category king of that category.

#5: Prioritize getting to market.?

“Get to market sooner. Take it out of the lab. We spent two years building it kind of in the lab. And that was a mistake. As much as I feel like we threw it out there with duct tape and bubblegum, if we had done it a year sooner, we would have accelerated sooner, we would have been all the better for it.”?

??Actionable takeaway: This was Asaf’s #1 piece of advice to founders and it’s a valuable lesson. It’s easy to spend time in the lab, perfecting your product but often times, you are much better off shipping the product and gett it in the hands of customers as fast as possible.?

#6: Be driven to serve your team.?

“So a lot of it is in some ways when I founded the company, being a unicorn was like this big, hairy, audacious goal. And now you got it. And so now what do I do? And so for me, it's not about, hey, I want to go build a $10 billion company or $20 billion company. It's a number of things. A lot of what keeps me motivated is my team members, both the execs that I work with and all the rest of the team members that I work with from individual contributors who've been with the company forever, and the amazing new talent.?

I want everyone who's put their trust and faith in me and this company have to this to be the best experience of their lives professionally and from them 20 years from now to say, hey, this was one of the best experiences I've ever had in my working career. That's a big motivator for me, that really gets me up in the morning is to make sure that the people who put their faith in me I'm repaying that tenfold and final question."

??Actionable takeaway: Reaching a certain level of scale is important but to sustain your motivation for the long haul, focus on your team and making sure that the time they work for you the great experience of their professional careers.

Bonus Takeaway?

As an avid runner myself, while this isn't company-building specific, couldn’t resist including it!?

Coping with the Pressure

“Running helps reduce my stress. It's my meditation because the job is hard, and when it's your business, it's kind of like The Godfather. Everything is personal. When the stress builds up, and it always does, you got to be able to pace yourself. And so for me, running, it lets me zone out and not think about work and also just get the adrenaline going. And the endorphins, I think that ten years in, it's a great kind of escape valve or pressure valve for me, which I think every entrepreneur needs, especially.”?

??Actionable takeaway: Being a founder is brutal. Whether it’s running, biking, hiking, or any other positive habit that lets you disconnect and recharge, regardless of how busy you are and how big the company gets, always make time to take care of yourself.

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