Marty Kagan
Co-founder and CEO of Hydrolix
GET TO KNOW MARTY...
Hometown:
Los Angeles, CA
Alma Mater:
UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine
Any hobbies?
Gardening, cooking, reading, and scuba diving
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
A: I grew up in Los Angeles and got my undergrad and masters in California. I actually dropped out of a PhD program and went to work for a startup in Santa Barbara, then landed at Cisco and before joining Akamai where I helped build out their west coast R&D.
In 2007, I moved to Portland, Oregon and started Cedexis, a company that became a pioneer in observability for Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). We sold the company to Citrix in 2018 and started Hydrolix shortly thereafter, along with my co-founder, Hasan Alayi, the lead developer at Cedexis.
Q: What is your biggest piece of advice for startup founders?
A: First, make sure you clearly understand what problem you're solving. Don’t get distracted and build an interesting solution and then try to figure out the problem. Second, pick your investors carefully and be thoughtful. You're going to be stuck with these people for a long time so find ones that you're aligned with that you feel add value and that are engaged.
Q: What lessons have you learned about VC fundraising?
A: The first time we were fundraising, my goal was simply to not go out of business. We just wanted money and weren't as discerning as we should’ve been. We learned that having investors that you're misaligned with can be very problematic. It’s critical to find investors who feel like partners—that are aligned with you and part of your senior team rather than an antagonist.
I feel fortunate this time around. My investors are fantastic and add a tremendous amount of value beyond writing a check. I constantly reach out to bounce around ideas. For example, at S3, Aaron has been amazing at introducing us to customers, partners, and bringing in resources. Kalyn has been instrumental in recruiting candidates. Joe has helped us with financial modeling. These partner resources have been phenomenal. You can get money from a lot of places. But you should choose the investors that you want on your Board and you're excited to work with – it makes a huge difference.
Q: What have you learned from past mentors that you try to emulate?
A: I’ve learned different things from different mentors. I had an early mentor at Cisco who was a great role model and demonstrated how to manage and develop people. And at Akamai there was an amazing CEO who I now always measure myself against when I am managing different situations. Ultimately, I learned from him that the primary role of the CEO is to sell. There’s lots of things to do with limited time so you must decide where to get involved and how to manage your time. The CEO should be selling and helping to close deals. Everything else will work out. As much as I love spending time with engineering or product or operations, the bulk of my time is spent selling, evangelizing, creating new partnerships, and opening doors to new customers. That's where I have the most impact—plus it gives me visibility into what customers are saying.
Q: How has your leadership style evolved over the years?
A: I’m much calmer with my second startup than I was with my first one—I’m more balanced. While we have good days and bad days, I’ve learned that being level-headed is helpful for everyone around me. And I have a lot more perspective that I previously did.
Q: What has been a success factor for the tremendous growth you are experiencing at Hydrolix?
A: The biggest thing for us was finding the right partners to go-to-market. Particularly in our space, the regulatory environment has changed a lot with GDPR so getting direct contracts through legal, security, and procurement is very time-consuming and painful. We were experiencing nine-month sales cycles with only 30% conversion rates – a lot of effort for very little gain. Finding partners with existing relationships enabled us to shorten average sales cycles to 60-day sales with 70% conversion rates. Partner-led sales have been transformative for us.
Q: Has there been any pivotal moment or decision in your career that's led you to where you are today?
A: I can’t think of one specific thing except that I'm blessed with a wife who's been tremendously supportive of me starting new companies and taking risks. I have a lot of employees and customers in Europe and Asia so there are a lot of early mornings and late nights. It's very all-consuming so having a supportive and patient wife and family has been critical to pull this off.
Q: What do you enjoy most and least about your job?
A: I really enjoy the people I get to work with. I get to work with my friends. I get to spend a lot of time solving problems with people whom I really respect. Luckily, I can delegate the stuff that I enjoy the least to people who really know what they are doing. My entire senior team is remarkable, and they all do their jobs much better than I could.
Q: Is there one attribute that's a must-have in every manager you hire?
A: When I'm hiring or promoting managers, it's important that they understand our culture, including our values of family first and flexibility, to emphasize we're not treating employees like resources, but really treating our team with respect. Our team should take vacations when it's convenient for them, not when it's convenient for the company. There are a lot of things we emphasize when we're hiring or promoting managers, so it’s important that our values are represented and conveyed, and that they understand what it means to manage people at Hydrolix.
Hydrolix is the only data lake platform transforming the economics of log data. Its combination of stream processing, decoupled storage, high-density compression and indexed search delivers real-time query performance at terabyte scale while dramatically reducing costs. Hydrolix powers data-intensive applications to elevate business intelligence, optimize operations and drive growth across industries. Founded in 2018 and based in Portland, Ore., Hydrolix is trusted by Fortune 500 companies worldwide. More info: hydrolix.com
“First, make sure you clearly understand what problem you’re solving. Don’t get distracted and build an interesting solution and then try to figure out the problem.”