Monte Zweben is the co-founder and CEO of Splice Machine, a provider of the open-source SQL RDBMS for hybrid workloads. Monte is a serial entrepreneur and well-respected industry expert in Big Data who started at NASA. Previously, he also founded and was the CEO of Red Pepper Software and Blue Martini Software.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Peter Freeland, someone he used to work with
- Tom Siebel of C3 IoT
- Marc Benioff
When business started difficulties overcame:
“Every time I’ve started a business there have been naysayers that have said one of two things, one, that’s impossible you can’t do that, or two, if you try to do that the gorilla in that space will just crush you, and I’ve never started a company, including my first company where that wasn’t said and it was credible, it was difficult to do what we were setting out to do”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers Book by Geoffrey A Moore
- The Innovator’s Dilemma (Management of Innovation and Change) Book by Clayton M Christensen
- The Challenger Sale: How To Take Control of the Customer Conversation book Book by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon
- Play Bigger: How Rebels and Innovators Create New Categories and Dominate Markets book Book by Al Ramadan and Dave Peterson and Christopher Lochhead
Favourite Quote:
“Failure is not an option”
Recommended Online Resources:
Not asked
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“Go talk to customers all the time, spend 75% of your time with customers, understand their world intimately and while you need to understand your product, understand it through their eyes and I think another recommendation that I think is a little less utilised and a little less obvious which is spend time with your competitors, you’d be really surprised what they would tell you”…[Listen for More]
More About Monte Zweben:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Always the right question is considered the unrelated one.” M.F. Moonzajer, 30 Pieces
Other Quotes From the Chat with Monte Zweben:
- “Talking to your customers is absolutely critical”
- “You always use data to validate your gut”
- “It’s always to uncomfortable to know that there’s always a gorilla out there who may be able to out much more resource, focussed on exactly what you’re doing”
- “Some start-ups get lost in the data gathering to prove their hypothesis”
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