Founder Profile: Yogen Kapadia, Co-founder & CEO of Infinote

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Name:
Yogen Kapadia

Member Cohort:
March 2012

Location:
Sunnyvale, CA

Education:
Masters in Computer Science, Wright University
Bachelors in Computer Engineering, Bombay University

Prior Experience:

• Product/Application Innovation, Strategy and Development
• Enterprise Application Integration and Architecture
• Regulatory, Quality, and Compliance Systems
  – Document and Content Management
  – Records Management
  – Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)
  – Tracking Systems (Discrepancy Management, Product Complaints, Corrective
• Action, Preventive Action, Change Control)
• Provided business and technology solutions to Fortune 500 companies
• Regulatory (FDA) requirements

Current Startup:
Infinote: A company poised to revolutionize document management by enabling users to create, edit, and audit enterprise within seconds rather than several weeks.

Mission:
To simplify document management by changing the process of creating, updating and auditing documents for enterprises with a regulated focus in pharmaceuticals and finance.

Milestones:

• Formed founding team of 2
• Self-funded
• Went full-time last May
• Into his third year in business
• Alpha product and beta customers secured

Lessons Learned:
“Initially our vision of the VC world was very different. We thought VC’s were venture capitalists. We know now that they are private equity investors. They don’t invest in ideas:  they only invest in businesses. We should have focused the initial time we spent reaching out to VC’s on building our product, and then going out to VC’s.”

Staying Motivated:
“The problem that I’m solving right now is something I’ve seen throughout my 12 year career. I saw it when I was at Sapient and Genentech. You invest millions into solving these systems and they still don’t deliver. Having found something really neat that can completely change the way people work keeps me motivated. Big ideas like these don’t come every day. They’re more of a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Once you show it to customers and they validate it, you know you have nailed it. There will be ups, downs and unanticipated challenges, but you just keep on going because you know that you are headed in the right direction.”

Biggest Mentor:
“Farouk Arjani – special technology partner of Sequoia. Coming from a tech background, I had no idea about what it takes to startup a business.  When I first pitched my idea to him last year, it was very crude and he pushed me to focus on regulated industries.  He also encouraged me to start talking to customers and identify 4-5 key use cases that are difficult to solve that would allow me to provide the maximum value to customers. He’s a great mentor because we click.  It’s that simple. When I first met him, I wasn’t ready with a polished presentation but it didn’t matter. We just clicked and had good chemistry. As a founder, you have to project a brave face, larger than life, etc. Inevitably things do not always go well. Your mentor should be one person who you don’t mind opening up to and will give you unbiased advice. He is always there to listen and he won’t judge me regardless of what a bad picture I paint.”

Peer Mentorship:
“Peer mentorship is extremely helpful. This morning I was talking to Jim Fowler who started and sold Jigsaw to Salesforce.com about an opportunity to sell my startup outright. I asked if he had the chance to sell Jigsaw after 10 months, what he would have done. The opportunity to get advice from someone who has been there and done that is extremely valuable. It’s not going to be from a friend, a VC etc. but another entrepreneur.”