TAG: Silicon Valley

Lars Bjork, CEO - QlikTech

For years, IDC has ranked QlikTech the world's fastest-growing BI software vendor, and the company has won many awards for its product, QlikView, and its innovation and disruptive technology. Even more interesting than its fast market traction is the fact that it brands itself as "a new kind of software company" and consistently wins awards for being a great place to work. Sandhill.com spoke with QlikTech CEO, Lars Bjork, about the company's origins and growth journey. In this article he shares the decisions and mindset that led to success and the lessons learned along the way.

Seymour Duncker , Founder and CEO - iCharts

We launched our startup, iCharts, in 2008. One week later, I was sitting in a venture capital firm's office, waiting for my appointment, and I saw the headline that Lehman Brothers was bankrupt. The market crashed and, along with it, venture capital funding for new startups went away. Suddenly my company was thrust onto a circuitous path over the next three years that took us in a completely different direction than what I'd planned. What follows are some of my lessons learned and challenges while building my company, and my advice for avoiding four startup pitfalls.

Josh Narva, VP of People - MarkLogic

The right people can do more to drive the success of a software company than any other factor. You can have a fantastically differentiated product and an undeniable target market but if you don't have the right people, your company can't execute on these opportunities. Trouble is, the "right" tech workers are as hard to find as ever.