Scaling an Enterprise Data Startup

Startup Hustle

In this episode of the Startup Hustle podcast, Matt Watson interviews Ozan Unlu, the founder and CEO of Edge Delta, an observability company. They discuss the challenges of managing large amounts of data in complex production environments and the need for developers to have access to production data without compromising security.

Ozan shares his journey from being a software developer at Microsoft to becoming a solution architect and eventually starting his own company. They also delve into the unique problem that Edge Delta solves, which is processing and analyzing data at the edge to determine its value and optimize storage and retention.

Takeaways
- Observability is crucial for managing large amounts of data in complex production environments.
- Developers need access to production data without compromising security.
- Edge Delta solves the problem of processing and analyzing data at the edge to determine its value and optimize storage and retention.
- The company provides flexible and scalable solutions for observability and data pipelines.
- Edge Delta competes with log management tools like Splunk and DataDog, offering 80% of features that customers care about.
- Edge Delta aims to be the best platform for customers in the long term, rather than focusing solely on revenue. Starting a deep tech and enterprise company requires a long-term vision and the ability to navigate both technical and sales challenges.
- Raising early-stage funding can be lengthy, but having a strong team and unique insights can help attract investors.
- The sales cycle for enterprise accounts is typically five to six months, involving multiple teams and evaluation periods.
- Storing and analyzing large amounts of data in the observability space is a significant challenge, and implementing next-generation architectures can help bring down costs.
- Entrepreneurs should seize the current market opportunities and the availability of talent and potential investors to pursue their dreams.

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This episode is sponsored by Full Scale:
https://fullscale.io/

Visit the Edge Delta website:
https://edgedelta.com/

Learn more about Ozan here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ozanu/

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Sound Bites
"I'm excited because not very often do I get a podcast host who also has a tremendous amount of experience in the space."
"I think my unique experience of being an ex-developer who then went solution architect and went salesperson, showing up once a week and really working with the customers on deep technical challenges, kind of in the front trenches, that..."
"Edge Delta is the concept of how do we start looking at data as it's being created, as close to the source of that data as possible, and how do we start to pre-process, pre-aggregate, and frankly have machine learning and some even basic AI running on the edge."
"We have to have a very long-term vision on this, even on day one."
"The team is probably the number one thing."
"It feels like you're on the treadmill, just trying to get a few customers landed."

Chapters
00:00 The Challenges of Observability and Data Management
06:17 Solving Unique Problems with Edge Delta
12:55 Competing in the Landscape of Observability Vendors
25:05 The Journey to Acquiring the First Paying Customer
31:22 Innovation in the Observability Space

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