Bhavin Turakhia: From Founder To Billionaire

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Insights and Inspiration

with Bhavin Turakhia, founder and CEO of Flock

“I’m a problem-solver. When I see a problem, I can’t do anything but try and solve it,” said Bhavin Turakhia, an icon in the cloud industry.

Video Bhavin Turakhia

At CloudFest, Turakhia shared a quick high-level SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of today’s Cloud industry.

From Founder To Billionaire


About Bhavin Turakhia

Bhavin Turakhia has started 12 companies, including Flock, Radix, CodeChef, Ringo, Media.net, and Zeta – starting with a hosting company called Directi, co-founded with his brother Divyank when he was just a 17-year-old kid growing up in India. He grew that initial company for many years before making his first transaction, and has made many successful transactions since. Bhavin is a problem solver, leader, and visionary with tremendous insights to share about leadership styles that work in the tech space, and how decision-makers in the Cloud industry can develop real business strategies that produce results.

Strengths

What characteristics of the business or project give it an advantage over others?

“One of the things I love about this space,” said Turakhia, “is that the people at this conference control 90% of the internet!”

The Cloud industry influences the online journey of every single business in the world. Just last year alone, 60 million domain names were added to the internet, he said. So, you know, there’s that.

Weaknesses

What characteristics of the business or project set it at a disadvantage relative to others?

… But don’t get cocky!

Consumers and competition have changed, said Turakhia… but we have not changed. New features have been added, but they’re not presented differently to customers.

“That’s a weakness we need to fix,” implored Turahkia. We have an amazing strength in our access to the whole planet’s customer base, he said, but when designing, design for differentiation.

Opportunities

What elements in the environment can the business or project exploit to its advantage?

“We [in the cloud industry] are at the genesis of every single business idea,” said Turakhia. (So, you know, there’s that.)

When any entrepreneur has an idea, he said, they go straight to grab a domain name – even adjusting their new company’s name to match the domains available. “We’re there at the beginning,” he said, “before they hire their first employee. Before they register their trademark,” never mind before they go through those young-company growing pains on the path towards scale.

60% of domains that have existed for three years or more have active MX (mail exchange) records, said Turakhia, which means that email still matters. Active users will leverage your email offerings, but they’ll forward that service to their Gmail, for example, if the Google UX is better than yours.

Threats

What elements in the environment can cause trouble for the business or project?

“Our customers have dramatically changed,” said Turakhia. From Boomers to Millennials and Generation Z, consumer behavior has evolved in fundamental ways. “There was a time when ownership was important: you bought a car and it was yours. No longer”, he said: “We no longer own stuff – we rent stuff!” Think of Airbnb, Car2Go, and so on. We’ve moved from an ownership model to one of access.

Also, users are demanding a great user experience, said Turakhia:

Software no longer has to just be useful, it has to be beautiful! It has to be elegant! It has to have soul!


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