Cloud Giants: UiPath

Global Head of Research

08/17/2021

On Cloud Giants, a podcast brought to you by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Byron Deeter of BVP interviews entrepreneurs, founders and great leaders who have built world-changing cloud companies.

In this episode, Byron discusses key stories behind the founding of UiPath with its co-founder and CEO, Daniel Dines. UiPath is a leader in the field of robotic process automation (RPA). RPA has the potential to transform how companies in many industries attack many of the repetitive, day-to-day tasks, allowing people who may not be proficient in software coding to help with overall automation efforts.

Daniel has an incredible story. He grew up in Romania, and he describes the 20 years prior to 1990 as effectively “stuck in time.” After 1990, communism fell, and there was massive entrepreneurship and transition occurring all around. Daniel worked at Microsoft from 2000 to 2005. In his view, he saw a lack of forward progress at the company in those years, and he was not excited to continue working there with such a low level of innovation. He ultimately left Microsoft and went back to Romania to begin the series of steps that led to the founding of UiPath.
Daniel mentions that one of the best things about working on a tech company in Romania was the ability to tap into incredible engineering talent at a very low cost. UiPath certainly did not start in a straight line, focusing on RPA the entire time. There were numerous iterations that occurred before even the name UiPath was used. Consumer products and outsourcing were two of the initial focal points that did not pan out in the end. Daniel cites these fits and starts as essential for his training as a CEO. They helped him learn how to be more effective in making decisions, as well as appreciate the factor of timing within the given lifecycle of a business.
One of the most interesting parts of the podcast regards how Daniel approached sales. There was a phase where the plan was to use engineers who would, over the Internet, directly show users how to do different things and extract value from the product. Then, there was a period of time where it was more important to start building a direct sales team, and this occurred later in UiPath’s journey, indicating that direct sales wasn’t the “right move” initially. Daniel also emphasizes the value in partnerships and ensuring that the different partners are able to fully utilize and see the direct value in the software. It’s notable that there was no singular approach, and that Daniel saw the value in evolving the sales process in a way that fit what was needed in UiPath’s evolution at each particular time.

For those looking for the full discussion, please listen below.

At WisdomTree, we offer an investment strategy that favors pure-play cloud companies. To find out more about our unique cloud computing investment strategy, which leverages the expertise of Bessemer Venture Partners, visit our Cloud Computing Strategy page.

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