Doug Neumann, Co-Founder & CEO of Arpio: Why I Walked Away From the Deal
Doug Neumann, co-founder and CEO of Arpio, joins me to share a founder story full of ups and downs, a true rocket coaster.
Doug spent nine years at Microsoft and six years running software at Bandwidth through its IPO before starting Arpio, which provides disaster recovery and resilience for cloud workloads on AWS and Azure. He explains how a famous AWS outage, caused by a single typo, showed him the cloud hadn't solved disaster recovery. He also covers pivoting away from his first idea in two weeks, launching right as COVID hit, and going through a fully virtual Y Combinator batch.
The second half of the conversation is a candid look at fundraising and exits. Doug signed a letter of intent with a strategic acquirer, spent three months in diligence, and walked away when the buyer tried to lower the price over a deal that slipped by a few weeks. Arpio went on to raise a 15 million dollar Series A, nearly double its original target, and has grown to 60 people.
Doug also talks about how AI has and hasn't changed enterprise sales, what the CEO job turns into as a company scales, and his top advice for first-time founders: plan to do at least two startups, and pay for experienced talent.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome & sponsors
01:31 Scot's intro: a "rocket coaster" story
03:12 Doug's background: Texas, Davidson, WashU, Microsoft
05:05 Running software at Bandwidth through the IPO
07:05 Why become a founder & finding a co-founder
08:30 Finding an idea: making on-call less painful
10:50 NC IDEA Idea Labs and the pivot
11:40 Origin story: the AWS S3 outage
15:00 Two guys in a garage & launching into COVID
17:05 A migration project keeps the lights on
18:05 Acquisition offer vs. Y Combinator
19:10 Virtual YC & 50 VC intros from one slide
21:25 Hacker News launch and the Joe Arpaio problem
23:40 Finding the ICP: Crossing the Chasm & mature SaaS
27:50 Fundraising: $2.1M pre-seed & the S3 Ventures round
32:20 Arpio today: AWS, Azure, builder vs. operator clouds
36:05 The go-to-market unlock: "we're insurance"
37:15 How AI has (and hasn't) changed go-to-market
41:45 Series A: walking away from an acquisition
46:15 Sleep, stress & scaling to 60 people
49:00 What's next: Series B, $50M goal, PE calls
51:40 Founder lessons & wrap
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Where to Find Doug Neumann:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougneumann/
Arpio: https://arpio.io
Where to Find Scot Wingo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/
Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/
X: https://x.com/scotwingo
---
This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.
We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:
Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org
Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com
Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html
Doug spent nine years at Microsoft and six years running software at Bandwidth through its IPO before starting Arpio, which provides disaster recovery and resilience for cloud workloads on AWS and Azure. He explains how a famous AWS outage, caused by a single typo, showed him the cloud hadn't solved disaster recovery. He also covers pivoting away from his first idea in two weeks, launching right as COVID hit, and going through a fully virtual Y Combinator batch.
The second half of the conversation is a candid look at fundraising and exits. Doug signed a letter of intent with a strategic acquirer, spent three months in diligence, and walked away when the buyer tried to lower the price over a deal that slipped by a few weeks. Arpio went on to raise a 15 million dollar Series A, nearly double its original target, and has grown to 60 people.
Doug also talks about how AI has and hasn't changed enterprise sales, what the CEO job turns into as a company scales, and his top advice for first-time founders: plan to do at least two startups, and pay for experienced talent.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome & sponsors
01:31 Scot's intro: a "rocket coaster" story
03:12 Doug's background: Texas, Davidson, WashU, Microsoft
05:05 Running software at Bandwidth through the IPO
07:05 Why become a founder & finding a co-founder
08:30 Finding an idea: making on-call less painful
10:50 NC IDEA Idea Labs and the pivot
11:40 Origin story: the AWS S3 outage
15:00 Two guys in a garage & launching into COVID
17:05 A migration project keeps the lights on
18:05 Acquisition offer vs. Y Combinator
19:10 Virtual YC & 50 VC intros from one slide
21:25 Hacker News launch and the Joe Arpaio problem
23:40 Finding the ICP: Crossing the Chasm & mature SaaS
27:50 Fundraising: $2.1M pre-seed & the S3 Ventures round
32:20 Arpio today: AWS, Azure, builder vs. operator clouds
36:05 The go-to-market unlock: "we're insurance"
37:15 How AI has (and hasn't) changed go-to-market
41:45 Series A: walking away from an acquisition
46:15 Sleep, stress & scaling to 60 people
49:00 What's next: Series B, $50M goal, PE calls
51:40 Founder lessons & wrap
-----
Where to Find Doug Neumann:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougneumann/
Arpio: https://arpio.io
Where to Find Scot Wingo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/
Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/
X: https://x.com/scotwingo
---
This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.
We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:
Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org
Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com
Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html
------
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:
- Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/
